Domesticated
by The Seventh Circle
Summary: Beast Boy "Apprentice" story. How will the green teen fair being the apple of a psychopath's eye? Expect gore and disturbing moments. :) Complete.
1. Chapter 1

Domesticated 

The Teen Titans sat peacefully around a couch.

Raven was calmly sipping a steaming cup of Jasmine tea, musing over whether to read a thick novel as well.

Robin was whispering mischievously with his ousted-beau Starfire while a droll National Geographic documentary spoke softly in the background about the various beasts of Africa.

Cyborg was intently focused on a multitude of tasks ranging from tinkering on his arm and other faux extremities to flipping a greasy row of bacon high into the air for the upcoming 'brinner' he had been looking forward to all day.

Beast Boy was surprisingly not harassing Cyborg about his disgusting taste in food, making snide comments about the cute pair, or rousting Raven for no reason other than to annoy her.

He was practicing, in his own semi-serious way.

The program that everyone had forgotten or at least was not paying attention to at the moment was the perfect tool for the green nature-child. Each time a new species of animal appeared on the large television screen, Beast Boy would transfigure into it as quickly as possible.

He was being strangely silent as he morphed from creature to creature, trying to control the roars of a lion or the laughter of a hyena or the hissing of a mamba as he became each one.

The others may have guessed it, but the green teen was mildly depressed. Raven had her tea, Cyborg- his bacon, and Robin had Starfire. Who did he have? Or a better question may have been: Who did he used to have?

As his ever shifting mind followed a stream of consciousness, he thought of the blonde girl with the massive blue eyes and the uncanny ability to control the earth.

Terra.

It had been years now. How long now? One, two, three? Somewhere in between, he presumed. He had lost track. As he thought of the good memories the blossoming couple had shared, he also remembered the darker ones.

Fog, shadows, orange and black, and destruction.

_Don't think like that, man. It was just a mistake._ He corrected himself.

His thoughts obeyed, tucking themselves back under the bed of his mind, to be forgotten and dragged out again at a later point. Yet, although the shade of haunted memories was pushed away, he reminisced again after her entombment.

She had saved him, his team, the city, and doomed Slade and stalled evil for a blissful period.

She was a hero, a Titan, his best friend.

"Terra!" he yelled as they crouched together. "We need to get out of here!"

As she shook with new freedom, she mournfully kept her head low.

"I have to stay," she whimpered out.

"What?!" he asked in crazed panic. "C'mon we gotta go!"

"No, I have to stay, Beast Boy." She instructed, pushing him away from her a little. "I'm the only one that can stop it."

"There's no time!" he begged, trying to change her mind as magma poured in and the ground quaked.

She tucked a strand of her hair behind an ear and smiled wistfully at him, it would be her last.

"There's always time," she reminded him, and quickly pulled him into a tight embrace, her tears staining his shoulder.

He returned the hug, trying not to cry as she did.

"You were the best friend I ever had."

As she pushed him away upon a floating piece of rock, he looked back as her hair began to rise with escalating power. The glow of her energy exploded and with a scream, she was gone.

In a flash of yellow, his greatest companion, his possible one true love, was encased in the thing that had made her so very special.

He visited her now and again, making sure no one had defiled her permanent tomb.

The plaque remained, the girl still stood, and after a while, they had given up on a cure as they focused on more daunting matters such as the end of the world and the collaboration of Doom.

Now, it had all passed, the city was experiencing a pax romana, a good time of peace. The Titans went out now and again to easily stifle H.I.V.E. novices or minor offenders, but usually they remained inside, a welcome break from the two hellish years.

Terra still remained at the front of Beast Boy's thoughts, always lingering in them, even though he had managed to climb over the initial hump of extreme depression and guilt.

He was still seen as the cute boy, the younger brother of the family, never taken incredibly seriously, but not completely ignored either.

He kept the mask up, too, not willing to change his persona that kept him so beloved, even when his inner emotions could not be labeled so easily.

As he kept his rapid shifting up, he seemed to have blocked out the noise of the others who had been gently calling him for the last minute.

Finally, in between morphs, he peered at his team, who were all staring at him. He let his ears open up.

"Dude!"

"Friend!"

"Beast Boy…"

"Dufus."

He stopped, bewildered.

"What?" he shrugged at them, noticing that all of their eyes had hardened immensely.

Starfire and Robin were standing, Cyborg's limbs were locked into place, and Raven had her arms folded self righteously and her hood positioned over her face.

He still had a quizzical, curious-George look plastered on, until he realized the once familiar sounds of lion roars and zebra calls had stalled and there was simply a dead silence next to him.

"Do I finally have your attention, young Titans?"


	2. Chapter 2

He knew that voice.

"No way…" he muttered as he flipped around to see the calm mask of Slade filling the middle of the massive screen.

_He…he…he…_

His pathetic inner ramblings were expressed in the most eloquent of ways:

"Uhh…Sla-la-lll-aid?"

Raven face palmed.

Cyborg let out a little string of wary chuckles.

Starfire's eyes widened with pity and empathy.

Robin glared ruthlessly at Slade, trying to regain his team's composure as he strode forward, pushing Beast Boy lightly out of the way, next to Raven.

"Nice one," she muttered meanly.

His cheeks reddened and he retorted with a soft "Sorry."

"What do you want Slade?" Robin demanded, clenching a fist next to his hip.

"How long has it been since we last spoke, Robin?" Slade answered infuriatingly. "It feels like it's been ages since I last saw all your smiling faces."

"Get to the chase Slade! What are you planning?" the boy wonder yelled.

Slade pierced his one familiar eye right into Robin's, and even Beast Boy shivered at the chill.

"You and your friends seem to be in the dark once again, Robin," Slade responded. "How expected."

Robin was fit to bursting, the chat with his most hated rival was lasting too long for his tastes.

"It would appear I have to do everything myself," the man in the mask continued, his light but psychotic tone splintering the room.

Slade stepped back, revealing a battalion of his robots. They were gathered around another figure, placing certain metal patches in respected areas, and worked in what appeared to be a sheltered crater.

It was not long before Beast Boy recognized what they were probing.

"Terra!" he shouted, breaking the quiet character of the conversation.

Again, all attention went to the green kid whose eyes were blaring furiously.

"Perceptive pet you Titans have," Slade reflected briefly before refocusing his attention on Robin. "My latest apprentice is in quite the predicament. And you seemed to have failed in saving her."

Robin glared back, grinding his teeth.

"We had no choice. There's nothing that could have reversed the effect." He spat.

"You give up too easily, Robin. I have found the cure for the lost little Titan."

The Titans gave little gasps as Slade held up a tiny glass vial of oozing purple liquid. Cyborg swore under his breath, and Beast Boy noticed even Raven shifted uneasily.

"How?!" Robin insisted.

"I can't reveal every mystery," Slade said, raising a finger up and giving it a wag as a parent would to a child. "You're just going to have to find that out for yourself. But, you may want to hurry. Who knows what will happen if you come too late."

The screen went black.

For a moment everything was quiet, but Beast Boy was scorching inside.

"We have to go after him!" Beast Boy argued.

The others gave one another wary glances.

"It may not be in our best interest…" Raven began to debate.

"What? No, we _have _to go! It's Terra!"

"That's the point," she countered.

Garfield gave a raised eyebrow, and his confused glare shifted to Robin for an explanation.

Robin let out a little sigh.

"Beast Boy's right," he decided. "Even though Terra betrayed us-"

"She didn't betray us, dude!" the emerald boy interrupted. "We betrayed her! She saved all of us and sacrificed herself…"

Beast Boy's shoulders slumped as he allowed memories to block his speech.

"That still doesn't change the fact that she tried to kill us all," Raven snapped, clearly unimpressed with her teammate's emotional state. "And if Slade really does have a cure, why hasn't he used it already? The entire charade is obviously a trap."

Her eyes flashed to Robin for a second; reminding him of the last time they fell for such a ruse.

Beast Boy regained his anger.

"We can't just leave her!"

Raven tightly folded her arms.

"You aren't listening…" she reasoned.

"Of course I am!"

"…to logic."

"What are you talking about?" Beast Boy huffed, raising his arms over his head in a rage. "You always hated her! That's the only reason we're not already out there."

"My emotions have nothing to do with it," she scolded heavily. "But yours obviously do."

Beast Boy bared his fangs, which were growing by the second. Raven's hands glimmered with black energy.

"Friends, please don't fight!"

"Chill out."

"Stop," Robin ordered, giving a final declaration to the end of the squabble.

Raven and Beast Boy turned away from each other childishly, forcing their lower lip up in a pout.

Robin brushed a hair back into the spikes, trying to rub away a headache that had formed.

"This is what Slade wants," Starfire murmured.

Robin peered at his girlfriend happily, and the rest, even Beast Boy and Raven, nodded in unison.

"Exactly," the boy wonder agreed. "We have to stand together or not at all. Slade's planning something, something big. We won't go rushing headlong into this, but we're not abandoning Terra either. We'll answer, but be on your toes."

All but one Titan signified agreement, Raven still turned away from her team, refusing to give up her pride that easily.

"Slade's predictable," Robin continued. "He won't carry it all out in our first meeting. He'll reveal everything, but we just have to find the clues he left. After we meet, we'll come back and analyze everything that happened, and then go from there."

"If we survive…" Raven grumbled under her breath.

"Move out."


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks for the reviews, they are just grand. Specifically, thanks to deathdeathdeath, numbuh13m, and BBgeek for being the first! **

The team arrived at Terra's grave, below the ground. Each Titan had their respected weapons unsheathed. Raven and Starfire floated gently in the air as Robin, Cyborg, and Beast Boy stood ready on the earth.

Beast Boy was growling softly in the form of a cheetah, his fangs bared and ready.

No one was there, only the solemn statue of Terra, the plaque still glimmering gently in the dim light. The roses had wilted, but new ones had taken their place. The group approached her and noticed the metal plates still dug into her rock flesh that the team had witnessed the Slade-bots putting in not ten minutes beforehand.

Beast Boy gave the new flowers a sniff and recognized the thick industrial scent of Slade. He had been there, no question. But where had he gone?

"Where is he?" Robin snarled under his breath, scouring the area for any sign of movement.

"Typical Slade…" Cyborg observed, lowering his sonic cannon and snatching the bouquet up.

His scanners buzzed to life.

"There's most likely a fingerprint or substance on here that might give us a clue to where he's hiding," the robotic boy explained.

As the machinery within Cyborg's forearm beeped, the rest of the team idly wandered around, searching for any more clues the mysterious Slade may have left behind.

Raven shifted pebbles of interest around with flicks of her fingers. Starfire flew in the damp, dank air of the cavern, perhaps trying her luck for a "Be Back Later" note. Robin snatched certain clumps of dirt up in his palm and rubbed it in between his index finger and thumb. Beast Boy continued to scout about, morphing from groundhog to greyhound as he scurried, trying to detect as many scents as possible.

Unfortunately, they all ended up with dead ends and wasted time.

"I knew this was pointless," Raven gloated stiffly.

Now in the form of a bat, Beast Boy landed expertly on the ground beside Raven and gave her a disgruntled screech of protest.

"She's right, man," Cyborg defended. "Slade was probably just trying to distract us. He's probably robbing a bank or a chemical warfare lab as we speak."

"Not to worry friend Cyborg and Raven, we can still catch enemy Slade," Starfire squeaked optimistically. "Then perhaps we can celebrate the victory with mustard and the watching of shirtless males fighting in a different language?"

"You mean Kung-Fu movies?" Cyborg questioned in confusion.

"Yes! Oh, that's exactly what I meant!"

Raven, Cyborg, and Robin shook their heads in annoyance.

"There doesn't seem to be much here, that's for sure," Robin contemplated. "Might as well go back to the Tower and see if we missed anything while we were out."

The team shrugged and gave relaxed nods, beginning to trudge out of the depressing cavern. Beast Boy remained loyal to the spiked, uneven ground.

Robin turned at last minute and raised a serious brow.

"Coming Beast Boy?"

His shape expanded back into the happy-go-lucky kid they all expected him to be, but now his face was masked in sorrow and frustration as he sat on the ground.

"No, I think I'll stay here a while," he retorted gently. "Pay my respects, you know?"

Robin's stone face softened ever so slightly and he nodded his permission before he left with the others.

The green kid, who wasn't a mere child anymore actually, sat humbly, shoulders slumped in front of the frozen Terra, still recognizing the tear set in stone on her face and her martyred outstretched arms.

He had tried to keep his emotions deep inside, bury them in the grave of his mind, but it proved impossible. His friends never understood or contemplated that he was capable of change.

The irony was thick; the Titan that transformed the most was forever forced into a mold in his friends' eyes.

_Just like Terra. _He related.

His thoughts, his actions, his voice, all reflected his old personality. But, as he grew older, now in his nineteenth year, the joke of puberty became far less funny. It wasn't puppy love that he felt towards the blonde girl who haunted his dreams. It was something much more real.

It had taken him a year to realize that. A painful three hundred and sixty-five days of hollow feelings and disgust for his former self. He had been darker than Raven, but they, the Titans, still were eager to shape him back into his adolescent self.

It had been like those days never existed, that his true and deep emotions were just a bump in the road and could be swept back under the familiar carpet, again.

As he stared upon his old, close, best, truest friend, he noticed the similarities: To be afraid of the power inside of you, to be cast into an unstable shell, always carved in rock.

She was the only one who had actually seen every side of him. She had witnessed his anger, his happiness, his extreme insecurity, the façade he put up, and she accepted him.

His guilt came in crushing waves.

_I had doubts about her. All she ever gave me was acceptance, and I spat it back in her face. _

"I'm such an idiot…" he muttered to his chest, his pitch of voice ringing in the cave.

He began to weep a little, letting his actual personality express for the first time in who knew how long.

"Poor boy."


	4. Chapter 4

Another had joined the mourning teen. Beast Boy whipped his head up and quickly wiped the tears from his eyes, trying to see through bleary vision, yet unable to spot anything new.

"Who's there?" he squeaked.

Footsteps sounded coldly on the ground, advancing upon him.

In instinct, he immediately changed into a menacing wolf and begun to growl in warning, the hair on his back pricked up and his teeth were bared in a terrifying snarl. He chomped his fangs together, egging on the intruder. Alone Garfield Logan was not to be trifled with, and there was no Raven to mock him into submission or Robin to order him around.

His paws scratched the ground, the patting of feet growing closer and closer.

He let out a savage howl.

"Down boy."

Another chiding comment from an all too familiar host came from the looming shadows of the mouth of the cave.

_I'll rip him to shreds!_ Beast Boy decided, his built up sadness transfiguring with him into a senseless rage, but the thought of Slade's head in his mouth, his muzzle drenched in blood was too good of an image to pass up.

It was not too long before the cold man finally showed his face, or his mask, only a few feet in front of the blood hungry Beast Boy.

He let out another low growl, his head dipped low, prepared to leap at the throat.

"How terrifying," Slade sarcastically observed.

Beast Boy drooled and licked his chops in the most menacing way he possibly knew how to do.

"Don't you want to hear what I have to offer, dog?" Slade proposed. "Or do you wish to embarrass yourself first?"

The massive wolf lunged, aiming for the throat and unfortunately receiving a kick to his chest.

This would not deter him, and as he flew through the air, his side sore, he became a sparrow, fluttering quickly back and forth, to which Slade was not so gullible to fall for and merely stood still, arms folded as he waited for another predictable attack.

The boy became another animal and another, each time sent flying back by a hard kick, brutal punch or throw. It was clear he was no match for the master.

Even though he was training more each day, Beast Boy found himself tiring quickly, each change allotting more time in between as he desperately tried to maim the untouchable Slade.

In his final attack, as a clever saber tooth tiger, he stalked for an unruly amount of time, trying to get Slade to put some effort into the supposed fight.

Finally, the masked man relented and charged with unnatural speed and Beast Boy saw his first opening as Slade threw out his shoulder in another one of his prepared punches.

He swiped his massive claw and finally made contact with Slade, raking him across the chest. Beast Boy dug deep enough, and as his paw retracted and the man stumbled back, he scented the familiar odor of blood.

And it was sweet.

The extinct cat gave a taunting roar, a bellowing one at that.

It wasn't until a few moments later that Beast Boy realized that although there was a clear scratch upon Slade's suit, no blood oozed from it. The cat peered down and saw his left shoulder cut deep, and then a glimmer of a small knife held confidently in Slade's hand.

He didn't just have his fists and feet.

_He cheated…_

The pain came next, and Beast Boy morphed again into a variety of animals, and he turned his back to run away. He wouldn't win this fight. He gave a loud whimper as he limped away, not hearing the knife clatter to the ground behind him.

His shoulder burned with pain, and he couldn't stand going on all fours or sprouting wings, it was too unbearable, he morphed back. He was already bruised, and assumed he had cracked one rib, and now the realization of Slade giving a famous beat down was inevitable, his only thought was to escape such a thing.

It wouldn't be so easy.

"Where do you think you're going?" Slade chuckled obscenely as he came up next to the changeling.

As Beast Boy crawled, unable to keep his legs from collapsing and his head from swirling with blood loss, he had only made it to the first shadow of the mouth of the cave before Slade picked him from the scruff of his uniform.

The cruel man threw him like a doll back into the cavern, in front of Terra. He also wasted no time in landing a crushing foot right into the cut shoulder, to which Beast Boy gave a scream of anguish.

"What do you want from me?!" Beast Boy begged in between shrieks.

Slade crouched to his level, releasing his foot to let the boy roll over and nurse the most likely shattered shoulder blade and collarbone.

"I only wanted to talk," Slade explained. "You were the one insistent on fighting, boy."

"Why should I listen to anything you say?" Beast Boy spat, seeing blood was not only refined to his shoulder but in his mouth as well. "MURDERER!"

With new life, he began another change into a tiger and tried to give out another rake. To which Slade simply threw him aside with ease, making the cat roar in pain to start and end in cries from a once-again pained Beast Boy.

"I'm not the one who killed her," Slade whispered in his ear, crouching, and then stood, again, next to the boy confidently. "I think you and your friends handled that one well enough."

"You're a liar…" Beast Boy groaned.

This was met with a swift kick to the ribs. Beast Boy gave another whimper and a mundane plea for mercy. The green boy reached for an end to the torture, his face sufficiently torn, his clothes tattered, his body bloodied, and his eyes admitting defeat, Slade took his hand and slowly pressed it into the ground above his head.

He held his legs down as he took the injured shoulder and mimicked the same, pulling it awfully into place beside it's' brother, Beast Boy screamed in agony.

"Silence, dog," Slade ordered, his split black and copper mask inches from Beast Boy. "I did not come here to end your miserable life. I've been out of the public eye for too long. And you Titans think that I'm actually gone. It's an insult."

Beast Boy gave another struggle, seeing Terra's pain in Slade's unforgiving pupils, it was driving the confused boy into insanity, and even though his body was in more pain than it had ever been in, he still fought.

"Keep this up and perhaps I will take your life," Slade threatened. "You can die right next to your beloved Terra. Reunited at last."

"Don't even say her name!" Beast Boy snapped, his fury exploding.

Slade gave a wicked smile under the mask.

"My child, I can do anything I please. You should have learned that by now."

Before Beast Boy could unleash a string of foul insults, Slade pressed an elbow right into his trachea with deadly precision.

"Your friends really should have put you in a choke collar…" Slade muttered cruelly at the partially suffocating boy. "The fact of the matter is, child, I want something from you."

Beast Boy gave his full attention, his eyes widening, his body going still for the threat beginning to loom in the dead, silent air.

"It really isn't something, but everything," Slade continued malevolently. "Lucky dog, I have chosen you as my new pet."

Finding his voice again, Beast Boy screamed out a:

"NO!"

Slade released him from his stranglehold on the ground, yet held onto the collar of his shirt as he stood.

"Obey me and you will gain power unimaginable," Slade offered, Beast Boy still glared and prepared a wallop a saliva in his mouth aimed right at the soulless eye.

Slade gave a slight nod, noticing the reaction.

"I expected as much. But, perhaps a different reward may interest you."

Slade held up the same vial he blatantly showed them earlier.

"I wasn't lying about a cure for Terra."

"Impossible," Beast Boy whispered out breathlessly. "It can't be reversed!"

"Oh, I assure you, it works."

"How?"

"I can't let you in that easily," Slade scolded coldly. "Just know that in the palm of my hand is the salvation for your lost beloved."

Beast Boy's heart longed to reach out and snatch the tiny glass bottle that was the difference between his misery and happiness. To finally have someone he loved back again.

His mind still retched at the thought. Slade never tells the truth.

"I won't do it!" he spat finally, causing the eye that he stared at to narrow. "I won't betray my friends, Slade. You can take that vial and shove it up-"

Slade dropped his shirt and stood his full height. He stared at the boy that was almost cowering beneath him, his confidence leaving in a breath when such a terrifying presence impended above him.

"You wasted my good graces, dear boy," Slade informed, his voice becoming sickly smooth. "I offered something in return for your service, but you refused."

Slade gave another crack of his metal boot into Garfield's side.

"I offer to save a life, one seemingly important to you. Yet, you spit in my face."

Slade snatched his hair in a death grip and gave the changeling another toss into the rocks.

"I offer mercy and grace. What do I get?"

Beast Boy coughed a pool of blood.

"Pl-please…s-stop…" he moaned out.

"Nothing is what I got, and it is nothing that you will receive." Slade determined, raising his fist for the final blow. It came down as fast as lightning strike, but missed. With an ounce of strength, Beast Boy managed to morph into a mouse at last minute.

Unfortunately, he was in no position to scurry, and Slade simply snatched him in his palm, the little, fur covered chest barely rising with breath. His captor's thumb gently stroked the green rodent, relishing in just how easy it would be to snap its neck.

"I will be back, little one," Slade promised, the miniscule mouse head poking out in the gloved hand grip he was in. "And I will take you, I will muzzle that mouth of yours, break your back, and get a thorough pleasure out of it. Then, I will make you kill your friends."

He lowered the on-the-verge-of-unconsciousness mouse-boy back to the ground and began to walk calmly away.

"Until we meet again."


	5. Chapter 5

"Beast Boy!"

A call resounded beyond Garfield's world of unconsciousness.

"He's out…"

"Oh my God…what happened to him?!"

"Raven…"

"Already on it."

He felt his body shift, but he couldn't connect with the nerves well, he still slumbered deep within. Perhaps it was out of exhaustion and pain, or perhaps it was his own sanctuary away from the horror he would soon face.

Unfortunately, he couldn't hide forever.

It was a mere second later that the team noticed that their green friend was quivering in fright. Something had awakened inside.

"What's going on?"

"I have no idea…"

"Someone do something!"

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Well one of you better, I'm losing my grip on him."

"Cyborg, brace his head."

"Poor friend Beast Boy…What did this to him?"

"I'm not sure, but if I had to guess…"

"You're not saying…"

"Himself."

They all peered with new eyes at their friend. Could he have been the cause for his own pain?

_Beast Boy was wandering through the dark plains of his dreamland. The ground and sky shifted and twirled slowly as he trudged curiously. The swaying high-grass went up to his chest and caressed his skin softly as he tried to maneuver through it._

_He was on the hunt for something._

_He caught the scent of meat, and his mouth watered uncharacteristically. His body crouched low, and his slit eyes peered beyond the thin, yellow vegetation that blocked his prey from his sight. _

_He saw a hoof and a splattering of white and black. Charging, he leapt into the air from his spot and managed to land his massive paws on the back of a zebra. The animal died instantly, having been caught completely off guard when he dug the monstrous claws into its' back._

_Giving throaty, content growls as he dug his teeth into his meal's flesh, he spotted an entire herd of wildebeests. _

_He licked his chops, clearing away the sticky blood from his whiskers and began the game again._

_But, as he rose proudly away from his impressive kill, it wasn't a zebra anymore._

"_Raven?" he wondered, sniffing the blue cloak that was sprawled over the bloody mess._

_With a swipe of his paw, he removed the obscuring obstacle, and then roared with a great, emotional pain. _

_It was in fact, one of his friends. Her front had been completely ripped open, revealing her entire chest cavity, except he had already eaten most of her organs and discarded of the spine before, so it was a hauntingly, disgustingly empty inside. She was barely recognizable, but he still saw the shine of the gem upon her forehead._

_As if his pain wasn't enough, laughter came next, and he wasn't in the plains of Africa. Concrete became the norm, as well as overwhelming darkness. Bars rose around the boy, and he rammed his head and shoulders into them, over and over again._

_Raven had joined him, only that she was outside the cage, her body now clean and peaceful but still resoundingly dead. _

_She wasn't the only one, but the entire team had died similarly. Bags of skin, the tasty muscles and organs removed in a fine dine by one of their friends. _

"_Good boy."_

_Slade had been there the entire time, observing the corpses of his greatest enemies with contentedness However, he still came over to his pet prize, and although Beast Boy thought he would earn the freedom of himself and his true love, Slade simply patted the animal on the head wickedly._

_Beast Boy snarled his complaint._

"_Is this what you want?"_

_Slade held the vial and a small key in front of the massive beast. He reached his paw to them. Slade pulled back evilly and threw the vial to the ground, smashing it upon the floor, letting the liquid evaporate. The key, he snapped in his fingers._

"_No pets of mine are getting loose."_

_He could no longer change into an animal, but was just a boy again. A very depressed one at that, he curled into himself and began to weep for what he had done, what Slade had made him do for false promises. _

_Slade then came forward, somehow getting into the cage with Beast Boy without opening the shadowy prison. _

"_Get away from me!" Beast Boy yelled, scrambling to the very back of metal pen. "Stay away! Stay away!"_

_He clung to the bars insanely, his eyes wide with obvious terror, but still the footsteps sounded in his head like church bells, the ground shaking and swallowing beneath him. It wasn't Beast Boy that Slade was after. He was too late, again. Before he could see what was happening right before his eyes, he recognized the long, blonde hair of a long gone love. _

"_Terra! What are you doing? Get out of here!" he yelled._

_She turned somberly._

"_I have to stay."_

_Slade grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her into the black hole pit that had formed, swallowing up Beast Boy's hope and faith in humanity as he watched her disappear into nothing._

"NO!"


	6. Chapter 6

The white sheets in the infirmary were familiar, but he was questioning how he got there. Sweat pooled in rivers up and down his face, dripping onto the bleached comforter. IVs hooked onto every possible vein, a heart monitor beeping softly in the background, Beast Boy needed some air.

He unplugged from the machines and unfurled away from the sweaty blankets. Unfortunately, one of the many needles connected was that of morphine, and his pain jolted back to life as soon as he made one bare foot step onto the cold tile floor.

"Son of a-" he began to swear loudly, and immediately collapsed back onto the bed.

It overwhelmed him for a minute, and he sat as still as possible, trying to remember what had happened that caused him to be in this situation. Retracing his footsteps, he didn't remember much, but he did recall the dead faces of his friends.

Raven's empty, bleeding body and a cage were at the forefront of his mind.

"Did that happen?" he wondered aloud, staring at the ceiling from his back. "I-I…didn't…I couldn't have. What's going on? Why can't I remember?"

At that time, the door slid open quickly, and the Titans entered. They had been watching him for a while now, and finally built up the courage to answer his questions.

"Hey Beast Boy," Robin greeted softly. "How're you feeling?"

"Pretty bad," he answered with a groan, trying to sit back onto the pillow. "What happened? Did I get hit by a truck?"

They exchanged glances, and Starfire went to help prop him up.

"You mean…you do not remember?"

He furrowed his brows.

"I can see images, but I don't know if they're real or not."

Raven sat on the bed, trying to be as kind as possible, even if it was hard not insulting him.

"What images do you see?"

Garfield winced a little as Cyborg injected him with a small dose of morphine and begun to reconnect him to the monitors.

Beast Boy looked up at Raven, still wondering if this was a dream and he really had killed her. Should he tell her that? Could he tell her that?

"Well…not a whole lot," he fumbled. "A cage, I think."

Raven nodded expertly, soaking in the information. What did a cage mean?

"What else?"

"I-I'm not sure," Beast Boy replied warily, deciding not to let them in on the worst for fear they might think he was insane. "How did this happen? You still haven't answered that."

"That's not important right now," Raven quickly responded.

"Why?"

"Because you don't need to know right now. Not with your fragile state of mind."

"Fragile state of mind?" Beast Boy repeated. "What are you talking about?"

"Friend Beast Boy," Starfire interjected. "We, too, have no understanding of how you came to be in this condition. We simply wish to know if you are healthy inside as well as out."

Beast Boy raised an eyebrow, following but then completely lost.

"I need a straight answer."

"You're not going to get one." Raven snapped, a little too harshly. "So stop worrying about it."

"It couldn't have been _that _bad," Beast Boy pondered. "Was it?"

"We're not sure," Robin answered, his hard stare making Beast Boy a little uneasy. "But what matters is that you're safe, and with time we should figure out what the cause of it was."

Beast Boy crossed his arms in disbelief.

"It's my right to know!" he accused. "Why are keeping this from me?"

"We'll do more tests in the morning," Robin gave a nod to Cyborg who pressed a red button next to the heart monitor. "Get some sleep."

"Wait!" Beast Boy reached a hand forward as they walked away. "I have to know…" his eyes fluttered heavily. "…I have to…know…"

His lids finally collapsed, throwing him into a deep, dark slumber with thankfully minimal nightmares. But he still saw the cage, the key, and the vial, and wondered what they all had in common.

Slade turned away from the multitude of screens in his lair, sitting in the dark and musing over what his next move would be, he smiled a little.

His shoulders let a squeeze of a chuckle run through as he thought of the young boy's predicament, and he sat back, pleased.


	7. Chapter 7

The nightmares had not abated as he thought they would. Beast Boy tossed and turned all night, just to wake up sweating and shivering incessantly. Everything he feared in the world collaborating in the span of slumber.

Black bags of insomnia filed under his eyes, he wasn't eating or drinking, and barely spoke a word after his last encounter with the team. This only furthered the theory that he had done it to himself. His friends feared for his mental health which degraded by the day.

He couldn't stop thinking about the dreams.

Each time it was a little different, maybe instead of a lion killing a zebra or Raven dying first, it may be a wolf, a dinosaur, anyone of his different forms. Perhaps he ripped Starfire's head to shreds, or broke off Robin's legs, perhaps even tore Cyborg in half with a use of his claws.

He could only recall the cage, the key, and the vial.

Beast Boy always ended up in a cage.

Slade always destroyed the key and the vial.

Terra always died.

It became so real in his mind, that he tried to forgo sleeping at all, and would merely sit weakly in the infirmary bed alone and stare at the wall or think of how great his life had been before. His self pity became depression and it felt like last year when all he did was cry in his room at night.

Raven, had been surprisingly reassuring and even was able to ease the pain of his wounds as she let her black energy seep into his weary bones or torn muscles.

"It's just depressing…" Cyborg observed one night in the lounge when the conversation concerning Beast Boy was sparked yet again. "I've never seen him like this."

"Maybe bringing him back to where Terra died was too much for him and it…" Robin began to formulate.

"What? Caused him to do that to himself?" Raven interrupted. "Beast Boy is many things but a masochist is not one of them."

She held an herbal tea in one hand, and stepped forward when observing became too hard to keep up.

"I mean…" Robin struggled and then gave an exasperated sigh. "I don't know. What could be causing him to act this way?"

"Well, I think you're half right," Cyborg contemplated.

"What do you mean?"

"Terra might be what's really stressing him out. And going there just stirred up some major emotional crap."

"It still doesn't explain why he was half-dead when we found him," Raven countered.

"Never said it did explain it, I'm just sayin' that Terra's a soft spot for him. It could have taken him off guard."

"Perhaps one of our many enemies stumbled upon him?" Starfire suggested.

"Maybe," Cyborg said with a shrug. "But, he has been real low lately, it wouldn't surprise me if he did do something to himself and is choosing to suppress it just so he can stabilize his mind."

"He didn't do this to himself," Raven repeated, her anger beginning to rise a little bit.

Say what you will about their relationship, but Raven was quick to stand up for a friend, especially one as innocent as Beast Boy.

"How do you know?" Robin pondered. "Cyborg's theory makes sense. It explains the amnesia, the insomnia, and the extreme depression. Everything fits."

"He had a knife wound, his upper bone structure is shot and he was severely bleeding out," she conducted. "Beast Boy is tough, but tough enough to sustain that? And do it to himself? It's too much. Even you had to take several days to do that much damage, in between knockouts."

"That was different," Robin snapped, clearly he hadn't gotten over the imaginary battle he had with his worst enemy. "I was actually fighting someone who I thought was real. Plus, I was under the effect of a hallucinogen."

"Who's to say Beast Boy isn't?"

"I checked his vitals, his DNA, his antibodies, you name it, and I scanned it." Cyborg interjected, gloating a little. "Everything came up blank. If he was fighting someone, it was real. And if he was beating on himself, he was aware of it."

"Then I guess we have two options," Robin summed up. "Either Beast Boy did this to himself, or someone did it to him. But who would?"

"I'm not sure," Raven admitted. "There's a number of candidates."

"Slade? We were already chasing him…I think." Cyborg offered sheepishly.

"No, Slade is motivated by revenge and his own personal gain," Robin shot down. "There's nothing Beast Boy has done and there's nothing he could offer him. Plus, we haven't heard a word from Slade since last week, and before that, two years."

"Johnny Rancid?"

"No." Everyone joined in when Cyborg suggested it.

"Adonis?"

"Maybe, he and Beast Boy do have the were-thing in common."

"I thought he was in lockdown."

"Perhaps he 'broke out'?" Starfire wondered.

"He's our best lead, let's go check it out." Robin decided, and the team finally had something to do, and were able to leave the depressing scene at Titans Tower.

Unfortunately their incessant worrying left the already weak Beast Boy vulnerable.

Like a snake, Slade slithered into the tower with ease, overcoming the simple lock code that Cyborg had been so proud of. Unbeknown to them however, was that Slade never stopped watching the Titans, and the number pattern they used to get in and out was drilled into his mind.

The Tower obeyed and Slade was granted a blissful entrance into the self righteous building. He roamed the halls for a while, hooking up cameras in the places he missed. It still baffled him that Robin never even considered that Slade had all eyes on the tower at all times.

All it would have taken was a discovered camera, a gut feeling of being watched, and Slade would have been found out. Sadly enough, in the many years he had fought with, observed, and tormented the Titans, they never caught on.

Yet, he would have time to revel in his superiority. He was here for a much larger, more prestigious prize. He had been contemplating Beast Boy for some time now.

The obvious connection had been Terra, Beast Boy always seemed to be near, and they always had brilliant fights. Slade still had the scar across his chest from where the savage nails of the changeling had dug in at the carnival.

The cut mask and the bloodied clothes proved enough that Beast Boy was more of a threat than he presumed.

He walked past Raven's room.

Then Starfire's.

And finally, he reached Beast Boy's. He pushed the door panels aside and wandered in, searching for something to use against him. Silently, he shifted certain objects around, his eye moving in all directions for an item or a clue that Beast Boy kept undisclosed.

Everyone had secrets.

Sifting through unclean uniform after unclean uniform, he finally stumbled upon something much more intriguing than the boy's disgusting hygiene.

"Well, well what do we have here?" he pondered, picking up the little silver heart box stashed underneath the lumpy bed.

Opening it revealed a mirror and an inscription.

_For Terra._

Inside was a roll of absurd pictures of the girl and boy posing together.

Unfortunately it wasn't an unknown fact about the lad's obsession with his latest apprentice; he had already played that card. Yet, it could prove useful to him at some obstacle, so he stashed it into his belt.

Slade was about to leave, pleasantly surprised that his soon to be pet kept his life hidden so well, unlike his first, who had Slade's face plastered on every wall and every newspaper clipping of him on his table.

Robin was always easy to read.

Terra, even more so.

Yet, another glimmer caught his eye as he opened the door to leave.

It was a needle, a few droplets still within, and it sat precariously on the top dresser of his room, hidden in shadow. Slade raised an eyebrow and took it with him. As he exited, the pitter patter of the Titans was evident in the lounge below.

So, he began to stride toward the infirmary, curious to see firsthand how the shaky green pest was.

Looking through the fogged window, Slade thought the boy was in solitary confinement. He was practically chained by the many tubes and wires dug into his skin. White walls, blankets, and no windows, Slade was thoroughly impressed with the cruelty and stress Robin was keeping the green adolescent under.

His cheeks were sunken, his vibrant skin was now a dull, pale lime, and Slade was relatively positive he could see the child's ribs sticking out, even behind the thin sheets. Overall, he looked weak and pathetic, unable to do anything about his condition.

Yet, it would be nothing compared to what Slade would do.

Robin was shouting in the room underneath his feet, expressing the dead end he had led his team into. Slade bet they would be so self centered about their own faults, they would not even pay heed to the very boy who caused such failure.

_Predictable Titans._

Knocking on the panel loud enough for Beast Boy, who was feigning sleep, the boy's eyes snapped open. He hadn't seen his friends the entire day, and he was beginning to wonder if they still cared about him.

The door slid open, and Slade still stood behind the veil of dark shadows, until he entered as the door closed, slipping in without Beast Boy even knowing what happened.

He was confused for a moment, but he shook it off easily.

"Man, I really am losing it…" he mumbled to himself, letting his head fall back on the pillow and his eyes close once again.

"Not yet."

Beast Boy was awake once again, revealing the situation of his eyes up close, Slade saw the true meaning of what his fear did to these unfortunate teens.

"You're not real," was all that Beast Boy let on, only allowing himself to stare forward blankly. "Robin says it's all in my head..."

Slade cocked a grin, stepping forward into the light reflected from the obscenely white walls.

"This is no game, boy," Slade informed walking closer to the changeling. "I told you I would come for you. And here I am."

The child's eyes looked up at where his tormenter stood, and Slade noticed his blood shot whites and dilated pupils that were just as empty as his own.

Not even his usual bright green irises held any emotion besides pain. He was a far throw from his usual happy go lucky self that Slade despised so intently.

It seemed breaking an already cracked spirit was easier than the mastermind thought.

Yet, there was a glimmer of hope still deep within that Slade also perceived.

"Do you remember me, dog?" Slade questioned, his gloved hand gripping the railing of the bed.

Beast Boy clutched the sheets tightly with his fingers, refusing to let go.

He knew him…he thought, he couldn't remember, his brow furrowed intensely. He knew he shouldn't like this man, he wasn't to be trusted. He did something horrible; he was the man from his nightmares. He and Terra were connected but the link was lost on him, the face, familiar, but the memories, distant.

"Sl…Slade, right?"

The child truly didn't remember, and Slade was rather proud. He had the beat the boy into memory loss.

"Do you know why I'm here?" he continued.

Beast Boy's eyes flashed with uncertainty, yet he had a vaguely aware answer to give, if he just had the courage to tell it.

"You…you're…" he breathed deeply. "An enemy? I know…you. I-I think."

"Close," Slade admitted, his finger pressed into the morphine switch.

"I-I-I don't…understand," Beast Boy breathed out, still clutching at the covers.

Slade was making his move, this would be the end.

"I wouldn't worry about it, pet," Slade coaxed, his voice silky. "It'll be over soon."

His black thumb came upon the switch again, ordering more morphine. It would certainly make the job that much easier.

And even though the green adolescent wasn't acutely aware of his intentions, he knew there was something evil going on, a master plan beginning to take root.

The morphine was beginning to kick in.

"W-what are you…doing?" he breathed shakily.

Slade did not answer but simply narrowed his eye. Beast Boy knew that eye. It was from his dreams, it had been in reality, the familiar menacing twitch of Slade.

A chunk of memory was given back when he witnessed Slade's go-to terror move.

"No...wait!" Beast Boy almost shrieked, and began to paw and snatch the betraying wires out of his skin.

Slade didn't think he had it in him, and he especially didn't think he was able to morph so quickly when he had been so malnourished and drugged.

Slade was not to make a fool out of himself, and he supposed he would have to capture the boy another time. Optimistically, that is what he wanted to do all along. This would make a far more interesting game than merely kidnapping the child in the dead of night like a coward.

The first thing Beast Boy had in mind was a T-Rex, and he broke through the ceiling, expanding out of the tower, crashing through the roof, all matter of concrete and electricity raining down as he simply stood. The massive creature was easily unplugged from the now miniscule tubes, and he dizzily jumped off the side of the tower in his blind necessity to run.

Slade dodged the swing of the tail, and the many blocks of debris falling down upon him.

"Impressive," he muttered as he stared after the suicide jump the boy made.

He followed suit, leaping from the high point in Titans Tower, and landing expertly on his feet, keeping his eye on the sporadic hawk flying in the direction of the city.

**Poor Beast Boy...Hope everyone is enjoying themselves. Rapid updating will continue until the caffeine in my system finally dissipates. It could be a while. Squee!~**


	8. Chapter 8

He flew until he couldn't feel his wings, until his body shook with pain, his head swimming with hurt. The air was still, the night was nigh, but it still felt like a ton of bricks on his beating wings. It was only a couple minutes outside the tower, and away from the blissful morphine, until he fell from the sky and onto a roof with a thud. The dust and dirt that settled on the building came up in a small cloud as he collapsed shoulder first onto the top.

Skidding across the cement, he hit the edge wall, luckily ending up in a covering shadow, and he fell straight asleep, the drugs in his system and the new arising pain taking their toll. He prayed that no one found him.

It was a race to find the missing boy.

Slade had a head start and an idea of where his prize had gone. Yet, he wasn't as desperate as the boy's friends, he still had work to do. He reached into the belt's back pouch and pulled out the syringe. It was still intact, and he gazed intently at its content, his mind already turning for what it could possibly be used for.

He followed Beast Boy, marking down where he seemingly collapsed, but refrained from crushing him too quickly. The chase, the capture, the game…it was all too fun to rush.

The Teen Titans had arrived just to see the infirmary completely destroyed. They had not seen Slade there, and presumed the young teen had simply lost his mind and went on a rampage. The bed stomped into nothing, wires dangling dangerously from the ceiling, and sheets of paper fluttering in the draft, it seemed more like a warzone than a piece of their home.

The dismayed Titans looked wildly around, shocked that Beast Boy was capable of such a thing, they feared he had retracted back into his Werebeast side. It wasn't out of the question, stress was the key factor in its release, and there was no question about the pressure on the kid's mind.

"We gotta find him before he destroys anything else," Cyborg exclaimed, clearly worried for his best friend.

The others agreed, wasting no time, they chased after him, beginning the long hours of searching they had ahead of them.

Crumpled atop a strange, unfamiliar building, Beast Boy began to awake. At first, he twitched for a moment, regaining overall feeling in his limbs. His fingers and toes wiggling into life, he creaked his pained eyes open.

How long had it been?

The sun hadn't risen yet, but it was clear the moon was beginning to sink back down into hibernation. Dusk was arriving, and he luckily remembered why he had left in the first place, and what was causing this new sense of ache ringing through his entire body.

Slade.

It seemed after every encounter they had, he was always in some kind of pain.

Finally, the pieces of his fragmented mind were clicking back together.

Slade was after him, wanted him for something.

'_Lucky dog, I have chosen you as my new pet'._ Slade's words reverberated through his mind, and he wished for a moment he had stayed in his amnesiac state.

Was it true that Slade, the master of evil, their arch nemesis, the sole reason behind Robin's decreasing sanity, was after him? It made no sense.

'_It's an insult.'_

Was Slade truly so petty he simply came back to wreak havoc because he hadn't been in the spotlight for awhile? Beast Boy wouldn't put it past the loony, but it was a weak reason, even on Slade's part.

No, there was something more.

A vial flashed through his mind.

Slade had offered him the ticket to Terra's freedom, only for the price of his soul. Was it a bad deal?

_Stop thinking that way! _Beast Boy thought to himself, trying to bottle up the obvious lust for the tempting offer. _Slade always lies. Always. _

It still baffled him that he was the one the psycho wanted. Not Robin, not Raven, not even Cyborg, but him. Why him?

More than anything Beast Boy was horrified, he wasn't an animal, not a monster, not someone's pet! The thought of being locked away, tied to a leash, choked by a collar…shivers ran down his back. But even though that world held horror beyond horror, was the tower so different?

He may have been drugged to his last wits, but he knew his friends thought he was a burden, a child they were forced to take care of for too long. Had he outlived his usefulness? The city was safe, most of the time, and the Teen Titans weren't needed as desperately as they once were.

But this had been going on for a while. Why did Slade, of all times, pick this moment to begin his crusade again?

And why didn't any of his friends believe that he wasn't crazy? The first thing, the very first thing, they thought happened was that the poor boy lost it, that after acting weird for a year, he just finally flew the coop of sanity and had a mental break down.

_They didn't even help me last year. _He thought sadly_. I needed their help, and they just turned their backs on me._

It had been a horrible year. One filled with sorrow and anger, self hatred and doubt. Every night he thought of Terra, and every night he cried himself to sleep, curling up with the box he made for her. When it wasn't enough, he snuck out and dozed right next to her statue, feeling more at home there than in his own bed.

He was beginning to reconsider his place in the world, feeling lonelier than he ever had before. They thought he was crazy, that he was just going through the same thing Robin had, seeing something that wasn't there.

_Because no one can go through something different than Robin…_he reflected sarcastically. His words stunned him slightly. He hadn't really noticed, but he was jealous of the boy wonder. Actually, he was jealous of all his friends, even Raven. They had something to fight against and conquer on their own. They did it alone.

Raven beat her dad, the Teen Titans may have given her that extra boost, but in the end, she defeated him while he sat there in amazement.

Robin was quick on his feet and saved them all and himself from Slade.

Cyborg was all alone when he easily overcame Brother Blood's temptation.

Starfire even handled her own sister by herself, twice.

What had he done? They saved him at every dark point, and he didn't have many. Yet, they didn't come to his rescue when he truly needed it, and for that, he was bitter.

His mind turned over and over again, trying to solve the mystery to Slade and why he felt so angry toward everything and everyone all of a sudden, the stress was beginning to build.

"But, Robin's obsessed with Slade…" Beast Boy whispered to himself. "I'm not. Why would I see him?"

He ran over the painful conversation he had with the psychotic masked man. Every word Slade spoke made his body quiver in rage. He pressed all the right buttons and Beast Boy had nothing to comeback with.

_Dog…pet…collar…_

"I'm not an animal…I'm not an animal…" he chanted quietly to himself. "And I'm not crazy…"

He had no idea where he could possibly take refuge. He didn't fully trust his friends to act in his best interest, and he knew Slade was a definite, resounding, absolute no. Peering over the wall as stealthily as he could, he surveyed possible areas of hiding.

"Beast Boy."

_No! _He turned around, expecting Slade to be standing there with a whip and a collar.

"Get away!" he began to snarl, his skin shaking with a transformation, sprouting fur.

"Beast Boy, calm down. It's just me."

Realizing that it was not the man driving him insane, but a girl who usually did, Raven's massive blue eyes stared at him.

He heaved a sigh of relief and sadness, the tuffs of fur sunk back into abnormal green skin.

"Come to take me back?" he asked sadly.

Raven came to sit down beside him.

"Not if you don't want to," she replied softly. "I haven't called the others yet."

"Thanks," he breathed out, and slumped his shoulders.

They sat in blissful silence for a moment, but Raven was not going to pretend that everything between the two was fine. It was obvious that it wasn't.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked as softly and tamely as she could.

Not for the first time that week, Raven had a little wave of pity wash over her when he stared back at her, his eyes tired and weary of the run.

"Promise not to call me crazy?"

She pursed her lips, wondering why she would ever call him that, she was Raven after all, her entire world was crazy.

"Promise."

Beast Boy looked over his shoulder, expecting to see a ghost or an army of horrifying creatures. It was the perfect entry for a masked maniac to make a sarcastic, cold, bone chilling comment.

"Beast Boy," Raven called back. "What's wrong?"

Her eyes penetrated into his mind, and there was something terribly wrong within the brain waves.

"Slade," he finally managed to say in a whisper of fear. "I'm his next…his next…"

Raven's jaw dropped a little, an impressive feat indeed. The extent of her shock was off the charts and she was trying to stifle her emotion below the normal monotone line again.

"Apprentice?" she finished for him when his eyes began to water. "Why didn't you tell us before?"

"I couldn't remember!" he hissed. "And do you really think Robin or Cyborg would have believed me? Slade's always been after Robin…or you. He's never taken any notice in me."

The boy was breaking fast, his voice cracking with oncoming tears of frustration. Raven placed a gentle hand on his back, trying to transfer any measure of calm into him. She could take on a demon-father bent on the world's destruction, but tears?

"I don't want to be his pet, Rae," Beast Boy whimpered out. "He'll put me in a collar…I'm not an animal."

"We won't let that happen," she assured bravely, trying to get him to suck it up, just a little. "We'll keep you away from him; he'll never get his hands on you."

Unfortunately this just affirmed Beast Boy's fears concerning his friends.

"So you'll just lock me away?"

"No…I didn't mean-"

"What? What did you mean?" he snapped, the days without sleep coming to a head. "What can you possibly do to help me? It's over, I'm done for. Robin will use me as bait, Cyborg will call me crazy and then use me as bait, Starfire won't do anything, and you'll probably do even less!"

"Beast Boy get a hold of yourself!" she ordered lightly. "If Robin or Cyborg ever even tried to use you, I would throw them around like rag dolls. And they never would, anyway."

"I still can't go back, Rae," he said, wiping the tears off his chin and turning away from the dark girl. "I can trust you, but not the others."

She let him sit for a little, his fragile feelings needed a moment of repair.

"Why would you think that they would lock you up?" she asked after enough time had gone by. "They're your friends, we're your friends."

He whipped back to her, his lip trembling as he tried to keep another stream of tears from flowing.

"Then why weren't you there for me?" he choked out.

This question to her question took her by surprise, and for the second time that night, Beast Boy had managed to break down her steady walls of numb feeling.

"We were…"

"No! No! No, you weren't," he interrupted. "I was in a bad place, Rae. A real bad, dark place after I was able to mourn Terra." He laughed in a depressed cough. "I couldn't even really mourn her…too much happened too fast, and before I knew it…a year…She's probably dead right now. Forced to live the remainder of her life out in a shell of rock…"

"Beast Boy…" Raven started again, heaving a sigh and running a hand through her short, violet hair. "None of us knew Terra like you did. And although I never really…" Beast Boy gave her a glare, and she decided to leave her personal opinion out of it, she gave a cough. "Although I never…was acquainted with her like you, I didn't want to intrude on your grief. That's what the rest of us thought. We just thought you needed time and space to heal, and trying to hurry you along or make pathetic attempts to cheer you up would just make it worse."

He pressed the back of his hand under his running nose and sniffed.

"That's better than I thought," he admitted. "But, I still can't go back."

She sighed, but then tried to step into his shoes.

"I guess I understand," she said through a slightly clenched jaw. "But, the tower would be the safest place if Slade is really after you. We won't lock you away, but we can still help protect you."

Beast Boy made her cringe with a bark of laughter.

"Not anymore," he informed darkly, and then peered over, his eyes full of shadow. "You know why I ran?"

Raven shook her head, but inside she knew, just from the look he gave her, and the two shared a shiver of worry.

"Slade got in. None of you could stop him, and he waltzed right in. He would have taken me tonight, if I hadn't escaped in time." He peered back at the light smoke still rising from the T. "Sorry about that, by the way. It was the first thing I thought of."

Raven paid it no heed, but her face had paled considerably at the other words he spoke.

"He got in? How?!" she demanded rising out of her seated position slightly.

"I'm not sure, but he did," Beast Boy answered, a new reason for sadness rising in his chest, closing his throat. "I felt so helpless, Rae! Like there wasn't anything I could do to stop him…"

"I can't believe he almost got you," she relented, folding her arms over her chest. "Right under our very noses, no less."

The depressed boy gave a hollow chuckle and rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes.

"I won't tell the others," she said finally, the very sight of him so helpless and desperate etching away at her calm heart. "But at least keep in touch for the next couple of days."

He nodded gravely.

"I don't know what I'll say if they ask me where I've been, though," she conceded.

Beast Boy thought for a moment, his slight eyebrows furrowing lightly.

"Might as well just tell them the truth," he shrugged. "It's not like they're going to find me anyway."

"Well…they might," she said pointing at the communicator tied to his uniform.

He picked it off, and tossed it to her.

As she stood to leave, knowing each second she spent with him put him at a higher risk of being found, she turned before flying away.

"Where will you go?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted, feeling freer than he had in years. "I'll stay in the city, close. I probably won't be in my human form very much, though. It's a little conspicuous."

"Like a green dog isn't?" she retorted smartly.

"Less than a green boy with fangs," he responded, and they both heaved a relieved laugh, even Raven smiled a little.

"Should I bring food? I wouldn't expect tofu to be an everyday occurrence."

It was strange talking about something as mundane as eating, but it was a life saver and sustainer.

Yet, he shook his head.

"I know a place downtown."

She nodded, giving him one last intrigued look.

"Keep in touch, I'll be back here every night," she informed him. "Stay safe."

He nodded again, and wished he could give her one last hug and goodbye.

She flew away, hoping for the best.

He watched a good friend soar out and up, praying to be spared a cruel fate.

Slade leapt from shadow to shadow throughout the city, tasting victory on his tongue.

_One week later_

Dawn broke, shooing away the dark sky for another warm, sunny day. With it, Beast Boy awoke, getting the best sleep he had in months.

Last night, he had dug through the rather clean garbage cans of Tofu World, snagging a fake meat palate of kings. The crumbs still clung to his belly, which was now that of a cat. It seemed the city was fond of its alleyway animals, and he had been treated relatively nicely by all shop owners who had a soft spot for cute mammals.

Even if they were green.

His makeshift bed was made up of old newspapers and thrown out cushions, but it still beat the infirmary mattress he had been confined to for a hellish week.

Things were looking up for the first time in since he didn't know how long.

With homelessness came freedom, and with freedom came peace. He didn't have to worry about the new plans of an old enemy, save Slade, but he was still able to get the latest with Raven's midnight meetings atop an old shoe-making factory next to the ocean.

It seemed he was a fox when it came to hiding and avoiding. Raven admitted Robin was still on the hunt, as was the rest of the team. They knew the truth, yet they still rejected her claims. She tried for hours to convince them that Beast Boy hadn't been lying. However, when they hounded her for proof, she simply shrugged and explained how "hollow" and "empty" his eyes were, and that someone in his position wouldn't make a fib like that for no reason.

"We still have no evidence that he's back," Robin snapped at her, blocking her at every turn just to retain his stability. If Slade came back, Robin would be the first to fall, to crack, and he knew it.

The first reaction from Robin was not concern for the hunted friend, but an explosion of denial that Slade had made a return to the spotlight.

"How could this have happened?!"

"What was Beast Boy thinking?!"

"I should have known he would do something like this…"

"Find him. At all possible costs."

Those were just a few of the more tame comments by the boy wonder.

Cyborg had taken the news hard, to see his best friend in such a predicament of presumed self abuse was tearing him up inside. Starfire simply went into a fit of sobs, as expected.

When she had told him about the situation at the tower, he was saddened more than anything.

"I'm sorry," Raven comforted, placing a delicate hand on his shoulder. "I couldn't convince them. But, the truth's out there, and it wouldn't take much to get them on your side."

He shook his head.

"Even if they saw him, even if he showed up for a fight, they wouldn't believe me," he lamented. "Face it, Rae. I'm still the dopy Titan that can't be relied on for anything, except jokes."

It was a side she had never seen from the usually upbeat boy, and she now regretted all the times she snapped at him when all he was trying to do was keep up the mask of happiness that they had stitched onto his face since their first meeting.

Underneath, there was something deep and pure about Beast Boy, and it had simply taken a dive into his mind and a trudge through Hell to uncover it.

All his life he had been coddled into the baby brother position. Doom Patrol was never a family, and the Teen Titans had gotten him through his awkward years, but he wondered if he would ever return, now that he had a semblance of freedom on the streets, a new sense of independence.

But, through the entire ordeal, he would miss one friend very much, should he decide to permanently stand on his own.

The pale yet dark girl had been the most stable thing in his life. Quite the shock since he thought she hated him more than sunlight. In fact, as he recalled, Raven had been just as helpful at every turn, even when they thought he had tried to allegedly kill her.

He supposed they'd always be keeping each other's secrets, in some way or another.

He contemplated their growing fondness as he made the usual route to Tofu World, ready for breakfast. Unfortunately, he had slept and contemplated longer than he thought, and the dawn he believed it was, was actually a late afternoon spark.

He didn't realize this however, until the clock tower chimed six p.m.

Tofu World would be closing in an hour, and the sky was already hinting a dark evening.

_Better get there before Jim closes shop…_he thought, picking up the speed of his paws as he trotted around the corner.

_Slade's Lair_

Admittedly, he had let the boy get away, he should have been angrier at himself.

But, this was Slade, he was a classic narcissist, and putting the blame on his own shoulders was not an option. That would mean he had failed.

And he couldn't stand failure.

However, this did provide a good opportunity to try out his inventions as he waited for a sighting of the boy.

Putting down his newest toy, a massive smoke bomb, he strode quietly to the cages.

He was not so naïve to think that the animals he had stolen would respond the same as Beast Boy, but they did provide relatively decent conclusions to his many experiments. It also let him express his built up sadism, which he wasn't able to dish out on the Teen Titans for so long.

They screamed and roared in terror as he maneuvered through the hundreds of cells, afraid of the pain he would put them under yet again.

Ignoring the petty cries of the dumb animals, he simply threw open a door to one, this time a bear, and began the trials again.

He was trying out a variety of inventions to control the wild side of the green boy and was missing a link. He had tried everything from steroids to tranquilizers in his attempt to quell, control, and enhance the beasts, all proved to be disappointing, but each time he got a little closer.

Fortunately enough, his findings in the boy's room had provided such an advantage.

The serum was a buffer to the child's explosive DNA. It had stifled a particular strand, and granted control to Beast Boy. Yet, Slade would use this for diabolical reasons, of course. Instead of allowing the lad dominance over his darker side, Slade would expand it to his entirety. Thus, with a push of button, Beast Boy would not be able to transform into anything.

All the mastermind needed to do was create an antidote to his own creation and he would control when his newest pet would be allowed to alter in and out of animals.

After beating the large grizzly bear into submission, he injected it with a perfected form of the concoction. He watched intently. After a few moments, the animal began to convulse and foam at the mouth, and finally after minutes of agonizing torture, it died.

The experiment was a resounding success.

Slade then slung the massive thing over his shoulders and trudged over to the dissection table. Flinging the dead bear down, he snatched up a scalpel and brought the light over the chest, and then made a perfect incision down the middle slowly.

Inside, the organs had shriveled down to nothing, the heart had exploded and certain clumps of it were everywhere within the cavity. Blood had already begun to evaporate, there wasn't much left to look at, and instead of a recent body system failure, it seemed the beast had been dead for months, perhaps years.

The bones were already rotting black, the fur was falling out and shriveled, and it was quickly turning to dust as the chemicals still coursed through.

By the end, the once relatively healthy bear was a skeleton on the verge of powder.

His smile growing wider by the second, Slade realized that each time he injected the violent serum Beast Boy would be under the worst kind of pain, his animal side being ripped to shreds and then repaired, over and over and over again.

It gave him such pleasure his hands began to shake as he set the bloody knife back down on the tray.

Yet, the tests were not complete.

It proved wonders against the bear, but that still left every other possible animal Beast Boy transformed into, including his human form. Standing up and brushing away the ash, he strolled down the countless aisles of cages, and landed at one where he actually understood the language of the captive.

"Please, no!" she screamed as he opened the door to her prison.

He snatched a clipboard from the front of the cell, and scribbled down a check next to _Ursus arctos horribilis_. There were countless numbers of Xs next to a multitude of subjects, 7 next to the one check, specifically.

Tracing his thumb to where it read _Homo sapien_, he peered up from the paper, and stole a glance at the woman.

"Hello number 11," he greeted coldly. "How're you feeling today?"

Instead of replying, she merely widened her green eyes all the more and cringed. He then tucked the board under his arm and approached closer to the woman grasping onto the back bars for dear life.

He took out a syringe.

"This won't hurt a bit."


	9. Chapter 9

His stomach content, he managed to waddle back the way he came.

Beast Boy had found a nice place hidden well within the city. A bland, abandoned building that once rented out videos until it received horrible publicity for being a hotspot for Control Freak, it closed shop. Apparently after the extensive hospital bills and lawsuits placed on the corporation, it decided one store wasn't worth the trouble, and they simply moved on.

Beast Boy felt it was the perfect place to hide. He knew the shop well, and if Raven needed to find him, it wouldn't be hard, and he assumed Slade never cared about what he used to do with his free time, so he would never stroll in anyway.

Although the nightmares had never truly faded, they had become manageable. More detached and random, sometimes they never carried on to the end, and simply stopped halfway in or switched directions to more pleasant dream plots.

The time away from the tower was doing him well, and he was beginning to think every fiber of his stress was caused by being a Titan. His system was working fine, and he was still able to keep contact with the friends he made as a crime fighter. Well, at least one good friend.

As he began to retract to the familiar topic of Raven, his claws scratching the cement sidewalk ever so slightly as he padded back to his new home, he hadn't realized just how late it had gotten.

He had barely made it to his favorite restaurant, reaching it just before the shopkeeper closed for the night. Yet, as the tall, gangly man was locking up, Beast Boy announced his presence with an adorable meow.

A member of PETA, and an obvious animal lover, the man beamed down at the little, green cat.

"I thought you weren't gonna make it tonight, little buddy," he said, squatting down to give Beast Boy a soft pat on the head. "I saved you some, just in case. Hope you like Koya."

In fact, Beast Boy loved dried tofu, especially of the Koya variety.

He went back in the shop and snatched a little plate of the stuff off the counter and brought it back out for the expecting feline. Placing it down in front of the whiskered face, he gave another relaxed smile, a quick scratch in between the tabby's ear, said his jaded goodbye, and strode calmly away, leaving the happy, purring cat to his meal.

Who knew cats dug tofu?

Beast Boy liked the guy, he was nice and he always knew just the right places to scratch and pat. He just hoped that the strange man wouldn't try and save him from the streets and adopt him. He shuddered at the thought a little.

_I'm not a pet. _

If only everyone understood that.

The shadows of the night began to whisper their forthcoming, the city lights becoming brighter and lonelier in the gathering dark, Beast Boy was still deep in his thoughts, having a one sided conversation about his abhorrence to pet-hood.

The streets were becoming empty and silent.

_A pet…! I can't believe it…_he continued thinking, shocked that even though he could transform into many beloved and coveted animals, he himself was not one, and never would be. The ridiculous notion that anyone believed otherwise was lost on him. How could one want to enslave him like that? He saw it as just like human trafficking, that he was equal with everyone else in the world.

But he wasn't.

He wanted to be like them, to be normal and unscathed by what he experienced in his short nineteen years of life, yet he would never be them. One side begged for normalcy, and the other was content with being special, it was what made him unique, what had spared his life when he was young, what allowed him to have not one family, but two.

Another side also wanted something. Yet, it was far more sinister and was kept locked away deep within.

Everyone had their secrets.

Before he could divulge into his darker half, a blood curling scream was heard from across the street.

His save-the-day attitude kicked in, and he rushed to see what had caused such a cry. The shadow of a small tabby cat became that of a massive lion, prepared to take down whatever he needed to. He stood proudly as he appeared at the scene of the supposed trouble.

Nothing was there. The sky crackled in thunder.

Light rain drops began to fall onto his head.

He peered around and wondered where the shriek came from and if someone still needed help. Only barren trash cans and floating newspaper greeted him. That and a cold shiver running up and down his spine.

_Guess it was nothing._

Trotting back across the vacant street only a few blocks away from his hiding spot, he shook off the chill of creepiness he had just experienced and turned his attention to the now fat drops of rain beginning to soak him through and through.

Growling his protest, he began to break into a full out run, his cat form disliking the wet very much. He passed the buildings quickly and could see the bland building in sight.

Slade placed a check in the eleventh row halfway down the sheet of scientific names, another success. She had died much like the rest of them, but it wasn't the injection's doing. That had no ill effect on her, surprisingly enough. After a day of her tied down to one of the many dissection tables, there was nothing.

He bided his time, making sure that there wasn't any delay reaction to the serum. When the twenty four hours were spent, he breathed a shallow sigh of relief, and took the scalpel to her chest. Her screams of pain made the waiting all worthwhile.

"Organs are in good shape…" he muttered to himself as he dug through her anatomy. "Well, they were."

He gave a huff of laughter at his own morbid joke.

As he remained patient with her, he had managed to go through all the caged animals, and noted down a check each time.

They all ended the same; their dust filled four jars, but disappeared hours after. Not even a hair was left by them, like they had never existed. The swelling victory was grand.

All he needed now was a way to keep it within the child's bloodstream. He quickly tossed the suit idea out; it didn't work so well last time. Although he desperately wanted to collar the boy in a sickly hilarious way, the position had already been filled.

While musing over what other pet toys he could defile, a screen hummed to life, interrupting his sadistic thoughts. There had been no sight of the boy for a week and a half now, and Slade's patience was running thin. It aggravated him that he hid so well. Much like his mysterious room which only held a purposeful serum and a tiny, heart-shaped box, Beast Boy was more of a riddle than Robin.

Robin was well known throughout the world, and even though he tried to mask his emotion, every possible thought was seen in his body language. The boy wasn't as mysterious as he thought he was.

And Terra was a notorious occurrence, every uncanny landslide, every avalanche, every earthquake; it wasn't hard to follow the paper trail she left behind. She had also told him every secret he wished to know willingly, it was easy, really.

Yet all he knew about this green adolescent was his fondness of terrible movies, food, and humor. He had supposedly been affiliated with Doom Patrol, but not even the master hacker Slade could even attempt to crack those files, lest he want them on his front door.

There wasn't so much as a smudge about the child; perhaps that's what had intrigued him so much: They were both blatant mysteries.

He was the last puzzle to the Titans, and what better way to solve it than to bend it to your will?

He pressed a finger atop the ENTER key, which blared the dormant, softly beeping screen to life.

At first, he was confused. It was just a shop, a bundle of fur in front of the inviting, wooden door. Then, he zoomed in. His eye narrowed in delight as he realized what he was seeing, and he stood up from his stone, metal throne, a plan of capture in mind.

He snatched a leather duffle bag, a brown trench coat, and torn boots as he exited.


	10. Chapter 10

Soaked and soggy, the lion made his way into the broken doors at long last. The scream still giving him a puzzle to solve, he wondered where such a shriek came from. Obviously, the woman that had breathed out the morbid call was in serious pain, and most likely dead.

As he shook his wet coat and morphed into a large bear, believing it would handle the cold and wet better than a Savannah hunter, he sauntered over the stash of cushions and rolled onto his back, giving into his animal's instinct and temptations for a moment.

It was just what he needed to forget the pained screech.

His tongue hanging out cutely, he wiggled on the ground, grunting softly, loving the new nerves and senses available to him. His long, massive claws stretched into the air, and he finally relaxed, content with his silliness.

It had been a long time since he felt he could be fun and impractical, but was able to control when it stopped and when he wanted to be treated differently. He let out a sigh, which came out as a throaty rumble, and began to close his eyes for a warm and comfortable sleep, as was the bear's way.

However, before he could dive into the world of peaceful dozing another shrill cry was heard just outside the building.

Without hesitation he jumbled out, peering all around him for a body, some onlooker pointing him in the direction of trouble, but, yet again, there was nothing, only a cool night breeze. He grunted a call, hoping someone would indicate where they were, what had happened, or anything, but there was not even a whimper or a whisper heard on the wind.

_What is going on? _He thought worriedly. _Either people are dropping like flies and disappearing or I'm losin' it again…_

Yet, as he stood still, still awaiting a job to do, another was being carried out.

"Help! Please help! Over here!" a man called out finally, and Beast Boy immediately ran.

As he followed the cries, he ended up going farther away than he had expected. The sound of the impending danger took him almost to the outskirts of the city, and he wondered if he had imagined it yet again.

"Over here!"

"Won't anyone help?"

"My wife…"

As he sprinted, his paws became slender, his haunches picked up greater speed, and thin spots on sleek fur became the form. The buildings whisked by in gray patches and streaks as his speed became that of 60 mph.

All he wanted to hear was another shriek leading him in the correct direction, yet his heart thumped loudly in his ears, his eyes began to water in the quick cold, and he felt the pads of his paws whiter slightly upon the unforgiving pavement.

_I'm coming…hold on…hold on…_were his only thoughts.

A man stood out, waving his hands high in the air, and finally Beast Boy arrived. Changing into his human form as he approached, as to not scare the individual, he came beside him.

"What's wrong?" he asked through a pant.

"It's my wife, she's…she's…" the man explained through the shadows covering his face, his voice was familiar but Beast Boy wasn't focused on the tall figure, not in the least.

His attention was fully on the carved up, bloody woman that lay on the ground before him.

It was something straight out of his nightmares. He shook his head, making sure that it was not in fact, Raven, for she had been in a similar situation as the unfortunate female lying limp on the ground.

A clean incision up her torso, her ripped skirt and ragged hair stained with blood as her dull eyes peered glossily up into the air. Beast Boy saw every organ, and the stench was almost unbearable.

He turned to the husband, trying to peel his eyes away and hold in the vomit rising in his throat.

"What happened?" he asked in a choke.

The man turned, his unkempt nature came as a shock, but Beast Boy didn't mind, what mattered was the obvious.

"What do you think?" he retorted, and the teen gave a slight cringe, not expecting the man to answer so sharply.

"Sorry…I just…"

"Just what? Wanted to find out the dirty details instead of trying to help her?"

He gave the stranger a curious brow. It was easy to see she wasn't going to make it.

"Dude, she's already dead," he snapped back. "There's nothing I can do, I'm not a surgeon."

Instead of admitting that the boy was right and apologizing, the man laughed.

"I suppose that's what you told yourself with Terra," he hooted, folding his arms, he tried, unsuccessfully, to hold in the chuckles rippling across his broad shoulders.

"How did you-?" Beast Boy questioned in utter shock.

"You're a tough one to find," he interrupted, and began pulling out a black, leather bag. "But you're easy to lure out of hiding."

Beast Boy stepped back, not liking what this man was intending to do to him.

"Listen, I don't know who you are, but it seems you have things settled here. I'll just be going on-"

"You'll do nothing of the sort, child." The man informed as he unzipped the satchel.

_That voice…_

Beast Boy turned to run, to flee.

Slade was quicker and he snatched the boy's shirt and threw him into the ground with a devastating pound. Coughing from the impact, Beast Boy rolled and tried to morph into something, anything, to escape the clutches of the one-eyed man. However, his mind was so jumbled, his limbs so numb from the throw-down, all he could do was try and crawl away.

He didn't get far.

"Why do you persist in running?" Slade questioned as he reached for the teenager again.

Landing a grip around the boy's neck, he lifted him and heaved him against the nearest wall. Beast Boy kicked his legs out, tried to squirm away, thrashed in his grip, but it did him nothing.

"Let…me…go…" he pleaded through an ever closing throat.

The hold tightened, Slade's face was just an inch away. The horrible split mask, the deadly slits across an emotionless mouth, and the one eye all collaborating together in a terrifying ensemble of imminent destruction.

"Your life is mine, dog," he taunted, not even a breath escaped the slits as he spoke. "And it isn't much."

"No…" Beast Boy began to argue, somehow trying to overcome the knots squeezing in his chest.

"You never learn, do you?" Slade observed. "You really don't have a say in the matter. I'm taking you. There is nothing you can do about it."

"My friends…"

"Are not your friends," he interrupted again, ready to deliver the final blow. "You said it yourself. They'd try to use you as bait. They'd do nothing to help, even when you need it."

"You're wrong."

"Am I?" Slade growled, and then dropped the boy to the ground, loving the way he wheezed for breath and mercy at his feet. "You forget that I spent more time with the real Robin than you ever did. And trust me when I say, he'd do anything to get to me. Even if that means throwing a friend into the lion's den."

"The others, they'd save me."

The boy was looking straight into the ground, not even trying to put an emphasis behind the words he knew Slade would simply shoot down with ultimate authority and precision.

"No one will come for you," Slade answered. "Face it, child, you were mine the minute Terra died."

Each syllable coming out of the openings of his mask was like a knife stabbing him repeatedly in the throat, taking away his voice and striking the worst pain into him. He remained staring at the gray cement floor.

Slade snagged what he needed out of the bag.

"Someone will come," he whispered to himself. "Someone will save me."

Slade ignored the petty, hopeful murmurs escaping the child, and injected him quickly in the neck. The boy went limp, and he was finally out cold when Slade slung him over a shoulder and walked quickly away.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Thanks to all reading, hope I'm not destroying Beast Boy too much. Unfortunately, I spoke too soon. This chapter is a lil' graphic...and by a little I mean it could be an episode of Criminal Minds or Fringe. So...fair warning :)**

**Also! Kudos to all those who have reviewed! I already said thanks before, but still, THANKS deathdeathdeath, numbuh13m, and BBgeek. To the new reviewers:**

**That Guy next 2U: Caffeine... gotta love it, am I right? Thanks =P**

**SailorPowerTitan17: Your comment was just wonderful, you're amazing!~ Also, that's what really intrigued me to do the story, it's like a diamond in the ruff just waiting to be found and completely exploited. Anyhoo, thanks again!~**

**PaulieJuice: If by pairing you mean like a couple-ish-type-thing, than in answer to your question-statement, there really isn't a major couple. Perhaps a hint of BB Rae, but more of a familial feel than a romantic one. And if you're referring to a Slade x BB...no...heh. Hope that helped any confusion? Thanks for the review!**

**...ONWARD! Oh, and REVIEW!**

* * *

"Beast Boy! Beast Boy!" Raven called atop the familiar complex.

_He was supposed to be here…_she thought worriedly and then took a deep breath, calming her softly beating heart. She then shifted her weight and rolled her eyes, clinging onto the familiar.

_He probably just overslept._

Shaking her head and promising to kick his butt the next time she saw him for panicking her, she flew back to the tower just in time for dinner.

Below the earth, in a far more sinister place, the absent Beast Boy was struggling to break through the fog of unconsciousness. Head heavy, eyes feeling like weights, and arms tingling, he tried to sit up. He would have achieved the massive goal, if not for the hand pushing him back down.

"Not yet," came the answer. "Unless you want to be impaled."

As the boy lay back down upon the metal that held him up, he noticed his head feeling lighter as the moments passed, and when his ears opened up again, he heard the snipping of scissors and felt his hair fall around his head.

What remained on Beast Boy's mind was not his upcoming hairstyle, but the strange, foggy voice masked in shadow. The boy wasn't sure if the figure cutting his hair was an angel or a demon, but it became evident that it was the latter, for the dizzy teen was just about to ask where he was until a massive pain started radiating from his back.

He hadn't realized that he was screaming, his voice scratchy and dehydrated. Apparently it was loud, for merely seconds later something restricted his shrieks from escaping and he felt fingers fidget their way around his head.

"Scream all you wish, no one will hear you. But, it is rather annoying."

His already murky vision was sinking back into the black.

Clicks of a tongue and a prick of a sharp object into his arm brought him back into semi-awareness.

"I'm afraid I can't allow that," the voice chided, the wavelengths of sound barely audible. "You'd miss all the fun."

Another spike shattered his neck. Trying to thrash, it became clear that he had been strapped down tightly.

"Tsk-tsk. Behave this way and you won't get a treat."

Sweat was dripping onto his forehead, all over his body, the pain was almost unbearable. What made it was worse was his acute blindness. He was hurting; in more awful pain than he had been in a while, but he didn't even know the cause.

Slade did.

As soon as he had arrived back at the lair, he had tied the lad to one of the many steel tables. It had been prepared for him since Slade had decided to hunt the boy down. Strapping him in, the feet, legs, forearm, hands, and neck were all tied in. He then rolled out the intimidating tray of what he needed for the operation to begin.

Raising the table up, he outlined out a hole, cutting through the boy's uniform and the metal alike. Then, he snatched one of the many needles he had prepared, and as he injected it into the spine, the teen awoke and began twitching frustratingly.

Now, after cutting a second hole focused on the neck and stabbing another vaccination through, he simply had to drain the serum into every vein. Then, he would fit the child into his new uniform.

_Three hours later_

The boy had a needle sticking out up and down his spine, ten on his torso in total, thirty-four on his backside, one for each vertebra, and another for the base of the skull.

After the twentieth injection, the boy had given up. He thrashed and squirmed before, trying to escape the unthinkable torture he was in, but after his energy had been spent, his pain tolerance reached its peak, and he went limp. Yet, he felt every spike, poke, impaling of his skin and muscle.

He kept murmuring incoherent phrasings through the leather spread across his mouth. Luckily, it was finally over, and Slade looked on with amusement and pride in the pain and creation he had concocted that night.

Now, he walked away, letting the remaining drops of resistant blood to be corrupted. After a time away, he came back with a number of menacing items. Setting them down on the floor, he lowered the table just enough to see the boy's face.

Pale, shaking, sweat dripping onto the table, where an impressive pool had formed, Beast Boy still had hazy sight, but he was able to register the sight of copper, black, and a cruel eye.

Who had this much hate for the world? Who was so cruel, so evil? These were the questions the teen had tried to answer through every spike, every wave of anguish coursing through his body.

When he was slumped upon the ground defeated back in the alley, just earlier that day, peering into the gray cement, he had no idea that this masked criminal was capable of such a thing. However, once again, he had underestimated Slade, they all had; each time he came back more sickening than the last. Who could stand up to such a monster?

And now that monster that was peering down at him, the light of the swinging bulb glaring behind his head like a false halo.

Slade spoke something, but he was too much in pain, too fragile and broken-hearted to listen or acknowledge. When the man nodded, and turned to his tray, he was surprised that the boy had simply looked past him. The transformation already taking a deep root within his soul, the corrupted seed already planted within the soil of his mind.

Yet, it may have done him good to know what was coming next.

Slade hefted what seemed to be a wiry, metal cage cut in half. It was a long, metal pole, about three or four feet in height, and attached to it was four shorter, but equally terrifying appendages. Thorns cascaded down the entire thing.

"Beautiful isn't it?" Slade asked rhetorically as he peered lovingly at his invention. "It'll keep an even flow of the serum sustained at all times. Now that your body has been exposed to it, it might not come as such a shock."

Beast Boy was barely listening, his eyelids fluttering, his mouth tasting of blood, metal, and leather, he was too drowsy and numb to all feeling to care. Even though he was simply biding his time until he could rip Slade's head in two, he couldn't tap into the anger building just yet.

As painful as the endless rounds of injections had been, and still were, it wasn't too bad having them removed. One by one, bloody needle by bloody needle, inch by gruesome inch, Slade unplugged them from his flesh painstakingly.

Beast Boy just wanted to sleep, it was the next threshold he desperately awaited, an end, a blissful dip into ignorant slumber was all that mattered, not saving him, not the future, not even a thought contributed to Terra, but simply mundane rest for his weary body.

After all the needles were deposited into a sterile bucket, now swirling with a pinkish hew, Slade begin to lace the metal skeleton around the boy.

He untied the weak child from the leather holdings and flipped him over. Using a scissor to cut through the remainder of the titan uniform, he ripped the bloody thing off, and threw it into a bin below the medical tray, leaving him in the humbling nude. Snatching a black cloth to hide his shame, he tied it around his waist in the style of an ancient slave.

The underground was freezing as Beast Boy found out, even though his flesh was heated from the pain, goosebumps rose all over his green skin, and he shivered.

Now Slade positioned the frame and every thorn pricked into its counterpart hole that the needle had provided, and the reopening of the new wounds was now just a wince, as compared to the convulsing and screaming the child had done earlier.

The metal wiring fit up his spine, resting uncomfortably just at the tip of the Atlas vertebrae, the other thin steel strips attached into his shoulder and down both arms, ending at the back of the forearm, then the other ones were secured down both legs, ending at the calves.

However, it was not over, far from it. All the humiliating pain that Slade had forced him to endure was halfway from finished. Another item upon the metal tray where spots of blood had splattered was something that Beast Boy had long since feared.

Snatching his arm and rolling him back, to which Beast Boy tried to avoid laying on the new thing attached to his spine, Slade held a collar into his bleary sight.

A simple, thick black leather collar with a simple clasp and a simple dog tag was all that stood before him. But, ultimately, it was shame, doubt, fear, and enslavement that really looked Beast Boy in the eye.

"Every pet needs one," was all that Slade said.

Knowing that the lad was too weak, depressed, and broken to fight back, it wasn't hard wrapping it around his thin throat. Slade pulled it into a tight fit, yanking it up under his chin, tugging the tag into place, and then shifting his head to get a look at his neck.

Then, as the ultimate act, Slade attached a string of the collar to the wiring. He had made a clasp to accommodate the collar on the tip of the metal frame, and Beast Boy's ear pricked at hearing the click of his choker behind him. Slade had blocked off all possible exits to dignity.

He then did the same to his wrists and ankles, except these miniature leather shackles had strange, short spikes on the inside. The barbs prickled under his flesh, coercing red tears to weep upon his bare feet and arms. Seeming more of a slave than a person, Slade untied the creature from the table, allowing him to stand.

But he couldn't.

The nerves too sore, the pain too great, it had wiped every ounce of energy from his mind. He simply lay upon the board, refusing to move until Slade grabbed him by his new collar and lifted him up to meet his one eye.

"Pets obey their masters," he reminded coldly. "You are now mine, my possession, another tool I will use and nothing more. When I tell you to stand, you will."

He dropped the bag of skin with the hollow eyes to the icy ground.

"Stand."

As much as his body protested no, the boy stood. Shaky and wobbling at first, he pushed himself up by his sore arms, and balanced as he went to his feet, trying to avoid slipping on his own blood as he did.

"Good boy," Slade commended sickly. "Now, transform."

Beast Boy raised an eyebrow. He was asking the impossible.

"After everything I just went through? You can't be-"

"I don't think I allowed you to speak," Slade interrupted, holding up his wrist, he blatantly pressed a button hidden within the suit forearm. "Bad dog."

A massive shock electrified from the wrists and ankles, radiating throughout his entire body, and his once proud feat of standing was gone as he fell. It was so much that he forgot to let out a scream, and simply groaned in agony.

When it ended, he saw a metal boot before his eyes.

"Transform."

His eyes widened, and he tried to pull out anything. He shook with weakness, but he managed to sprout fur and a tail, and after a couple seconds he became a small German shepherd, the collar and the metal frame still clasped onto him.

Not even offering a commending, sarcastic comment, Slade simply nodded, and smashed his thumb against a trigger in his right palm that had traveled up through his sleeve. As Beast Boy sat there, wondering what Slade was up to, his fur began to recede. It fell to the ground in clumps and then shriveled into nothing.

The pain began again as his tail, fangs, and skin also began to do the same. It fell out, exploded, ripped away. Cracking through the bones of his paws were his fingers, breaking through his canine skull was his shaved head, and shrinking back into a human nose was his former muzzle.

He curled into a ball, his human side crackling through the dog. After he felt a cool breeze against his somewhat bare back, the unbearable tearing pain ended, and he sat up with a grunt.

When he peered around, back as a human, he noted the pelt and bones that surrounded him, he blinked, and they were gone, dust to dust, ash to ash, and then nothing at all.

His eyes widened at the realization of what Slade had just done.

The master smiled under his mask, and pressed the trigger again.

"Transform," he ordered again.

Instead of testing against the shock collars again, Beast Boy simply relented, this time choosing a snake, wondering if it would make the pain more bearable should Slade want to rip him back into a human.

"Go back."

Hissing with curiosity, he commanded his mind and body, but it did not respond. He tried again, wiggling and flipping his tail about, trying to switch his muscle into mass, rearrange the stubborn organs, retime the heart, yet it all failed.

He moved up his slit, shifting eyes at the man who caused this trouble. In response, he simply pushed down upon the clicker in his hand, and Beast Boy was thrown back into a human, his snake skin lying below him, his fangs rotting under.

"What did you do?" he breathed out weakly.

"I found a cure to your…" Slade responded, pleasure and arrogance clear in his tone as he looked down at the still shaking boy. "…condition."

He then peeled the last of the snake off his shoulders and flicked it.

"This isn't right, what have you done?" Beast Boy snapped, curled upon the floor. "You can't do this."

"Actually, I can," Slade said, his voice going below zero.

He snagged the boy's collar again, loving his new accessory; he lifted his limp body up just enough to drag his feet and pull him down to the stone throne where a plethora of screens awaited. Something else was there amidst the rock seat and electronics, it was hidden in shadow behind.

A cage.


	12. Chapter 12

"Any sight of him?"

"Still nothing, man. He's gone, long gone."

"Keep looking," Robin commanded through the communicator. "Starfire?"

"I am unsuccessful as well in locating friend Beast Boy."

Robin slammed his fist down; he had been failing for too long.

"Raven! Anything?"

"Nothing."

She had been patrolling around his old hotspots, and had been lucky to find his den at the vacant video rental store, but it didn't seem like he had used it recently. It had been two weeks since he made a run for it, and four days since he hadn't showed up at their meeting place.

Still, Raven hoped he had just decided to get out of town without telling her. The problem was it wasn't like him to just leave like that. He would have left a note, sent a signal, spoke to her personally, or some combination of the three. But he didn't. He simply disappeared.

The others hadn't believed her, and weren't searching to save him. Well, that was Robin's intention anyway. They all had stakes in finding the lost green teenager, but what drove them to stay up all night, to pour over file after file, was Robin. Finding Beast Boy meant regaining his stability, reassuring that Slade wasn't making a comeback into his life.

The rest of the Titans were in it for bringing the wayward child back home, and having him under their care, earning his friendship again.

Raven had been his caregiver, his keeper, and she lost him, again. It was killing her inside. She was supposed to watch over him, make sure he was ok. It was becoming obvious that he wasn't. She hadn't told the others, but there was a body found in the local dump.

Raven had a strong feeling it had been Slade's doing. Through her empathy, the sense of fear still wafting off the dead woman in waves, it had been clear whoever did such a thing was a psychopath. How many psychos resided in Jump City? Not many, especially not one as cocky and sophisticated as the one who did the deed.

The knots and butterflies erupting through her core told her that it was enough evidence to presume the worst.

Yet, she and the others still had no clue where their friend hid.

Closing the woman's dead, blue eyes softly, she peered around her longingly, wishing that he would simply pop out of nowhere like he always did. Only the stench of death and incoming rain greeted her.

"Wake up."

Slade's cruel voice sounded. Sleeping deeply in his cage, getting the best slumber he could within the contraption, Beast Boy creaked his eyes open just to be welcomed by a sight from his nightmares.

His eye sat in front of him, the bars blocking him from the boy. Whisking the door to the medium sized prison open, Beast Boy crawled out.

The collars and thin exoskeleton still intact as the thinning child crept out, he whimpered softly as the spikes dug uncomfortably in.

The four grueling days he'd been there, Slade had pushed him through numerous training sessions. Day and night, he sparred, became accustomed to the exoskeleton and collars, and all the while he bid his time, waiting for the moment to strike.

Tossing in raw meat for the boy's food, Beast Boy gave up eating for the first day, but now he ate it hungrily, savagely. The juices dribbled down his chin, and he avoided his master's gaze, unwilling to anger him, lest he be punished. Even though eating such a disgusting thing was making him feel empty inside. He could have been consuming a mother, father, some unfortunate animal groomed for death since birth.

Scars and bruises littering his exposed skin, to which Slade had never covered, growing fond of the loin cloth the boy sported, he replaced the ragged cloth with a fresher one. A demonic 'S' stitched on the hip, and cleanly cut black, it got the job done without making the master look cheap.

Keeping the triggers to the boy's pain and release on his arm, he assured he would never be parted with it.

As his pet cowered and ate below him, he contemplated the plan for the day ahead.

"Beast," he called, to which the child snapped his head up, quickly swallowing his meal. "Train."

Nodding emptily, Beast Boy waited for Slade or the sending of a robot for him to attack. This time, Slade felt unstoppable, so he finally decided to engage the boy himself.

The first day, Beast Boy had put up a decent fight. Not allowing Slade to throw him into the cage, he took a swipe even as a human, the serum still blocking his power.

Humoring the desperate boy, he took a stance. Learning from last time, Beast Boy feigned left and caught him by surprise, knocking his tormentor in imbalance for a second. He then carried out another weak punch, but Slade easily saw through it, and threw the barely clothed child to the ground.

Still unrelenting, trying to escape the cage waiting for him, he sprinted into the shadows, playing his cards at ambush.

Unfortunately, that wasn't his style in the least, and his rapid breathing and loud feet led to his beat down. And Slade spared nothing for the boy that had just undergone the hellish experiment. He easily defeated the weak teen and simply dragged his limp body back to the cage, tossed him in, and locked the door.

Slade pressed down upon the trigger, allowing the boy to fight with his animals. The millions of DNA strands coming together was an unexpected rush, it brought him to a knee, but it felt overwhelmingly good.

Beast Boy had a second chance. Instead of choosing an obvious animal, he tried to use more thought process in his attack. When they squared off, he morphed into a rat, trying to go as small as possible.

Yet, he left himself vulnerable for a shoe stomp. Slade did not move, he simply stood and waited, his hands behind his back, his eyes sweeping the floor where the boy once was. When he heard a shuffling behind him, he turned to see a massive bear raising its paw in a deadly thrash.

Ducking, Slade avoided the slash, and then kicked the boy's legs out from under him. He fell as a bear but landed as a turtle and hopped back onto his feet as a dinosaur. Pulling out his metal staff, Slade blocked the ravaging claws aiming for his head.

"Good, good," Slade muttered as he avoided another charge and tail whip.

Not even roaring dramatically, the boy leapt from side to side as a kangaroo, then, when close enough, threw a punch as an ape. Slade narrowly shifted and evaded the blow, and in return swung the staff, throwing the child back devastatingly.

"It's better," Slade analyzed, pressing the end of the staff into the defeated child's chest. "But keep going for the head or some obvious stunt like that, and you'll be down and out quickly."

Giving a low growl in proud protest, Beast Boy gave a slight nod, his eyes never straying from the controls.

"Again."

They began the game once more.


	13. Chapter 13

The Teen Titans sat around the lounge, thoroughly exhausted. They had searched all day and night for two weeks straight. Unrelenting, they scoured over the same places countless times. Raven couldn't keep the video rental store hideout a secret for long, and they found it. Yet, it just gave them new hope and life that he remained close in the city.

It only dampened Raven's spirit all the more. If only she had gotten there sooner, maybe…

"Raven!"

Looking up from her tea, she noticed Robin was giving her a soft stare.

"You ok?" he asked.

Raising a brow, she wondered why he would assume she wasn't. However, a tear was rapidly advancing to her chin, and it finally broke away and into her tea cup, a ripple erupting over the surface and then sinking back into balance.

Immediately whisking her hand to her face to wipe away such a petty thing, Robin came over to sit next to her.

"We'll find him, Rae," he assured her gently. "Don't worry."

_Easy for him to say…_she thought, hating the burden of truth she was holding within.

Yet, she put on a brave, emotionless face and once again raised a brow.

"I wasn't crying, Robin," she snapped. "It was just the tea steam."

He didn't look convinced, it was a terrible lie after all.

"I'm not concerned in the least for Beast Boy," she continued. "If he's gone, then he's gone. There is nothing that can be done about it. Getting upset or driving us all to brink of insanity trying to find him is pointless."

He took her words with severity, and he stood, nodded back, and walked away. She let her shoulders slump in relief, and took a sip of tea, hoping it was enough to ease her nerves.

_Stay calm…we'll find him. _

"It's time."

Sitting atop his throne, watching the disorder and weakness apparent at Titans Tower, it was the moment to strike. His new pet remained at his side, tied by a chain. In a ferocious wolf form, the once lively green fur had faded into a dull gray as the serum still remained in his veins, buffering anything it could, including color.

A growl erupted from his throat as he lay upon the cold ground.

"Patience, Beast."

The screens were all that Beast Boy had to peer upon his friend's faces again. After proving to be more successful in training, Slade had granted him the treat of gazing at the many monitors. He put his head upon his massive paws, the snarl still imprinted upon his muzzle.

Everyday his hope to catch Slade off guard and carry out the deadly deed dwindled. He saw everything, and if Beast Boy had been lucky enough to spar with him, he always ended up losing, and with the controls to massive electronic pain and an end to his animal side, it was hopeless.

It became so frustrating to lose, he fought with more ferocity and quickness than he had in his entire life. He may have hated to admit it, but Beast Boy was becoming something much more lethal and trained under Slade. Yet, he still tried to go for the head, even after Slade had warned him against doing so.

After one such training session, where the child had suffered again at the hands of his master, he stood defeated, his skin dripping with blood.

"I thought I told you to avoid going for the obvious attack," Slade reprimanded, and feeling crueler that day, decided to carry out a punishment. "Bad Beast."

"No, wait! I'll-" he had tried to defend, reaching a hand forward, just to collapse to the ground.

Waves of unending pain and hurt exploded over his skin, it felt as though his flesh, organs, and blood were frying and melting away. Eyes firmly rolled back into the child's head, Slade peered on with satisfaction. After torturing the boy for twenty seconds that seemed like twenty lifetimes, he strode over.

Crouching menacingly, he rolled the shaved head of the teen over to face him.

"Now, what will you do when you meet the Titans again?"

_Beg for forgiveness…_he thought sadly, their faces filling his haunted mind.

Slade raised his forearm, threatening another session with electricity.

"I won't go for the obvious attack," he answered hollowly.

"Close," Slade retorted, a grin crossing his lips underneath the mask. "But, no."

The child went into convulsions for a simple five second hell, the burning pain shooting directly into his nerves.

"It's simple," Slade went on to say. "You'll kill them, slowly and painfully."

His eyes rutted into a glare, and then they became widened and slit. Instead of demoralizing a child, Slade was entertaining a massive cobra, hissing angrily, the tongue slithering out in between two long fangs.

Slade did not step back, even when the boy clamped his jaw upon his leg in a flash, piercing through the thick suit, he tasted blood.

Not even letting a pained groan out, he simply removed the venomous fangs and tossed the boy, tail first. Then, he slowly, methodically, went to a drawer beneath the screens, and injected anti-venom before Beast Boy, as a ram, could knock his head into Slade's side, blindsiding him.

Yet, he caught his horns, spun, and threw him back again, into the massive cogs grinding above them.

"Finally, you are learning," Slade spoke a mile away, as Beast Boy regained awareness, the hit into the metal gears making him dizzy for a moment. "What is your next move?"

Narrowing his eyes, he went over a plan of attack as the man approached.

_Charge and swipe, no, swipe and charge. Wait, no…_

Becoming a slippery lizard, he waddled quickly up a stem of metal holding one of the many enlarged mechanisms afloat. A part of his plan, Slade snatched his tail in his fingers, seeing the flamboyant colors easily, he held him in front of his face.

"I will grant that maybe your years of being with the Titans have dampened your IQ level," he commented sarcastically. "However, under me, you will think more quickly, and pulling an idiotic stunt like that will not help your survival."

Yet, with a smug smile, Beast Boy unattached his tail, and fell from Slade's grasp. In midair he morphed into a chimpanzee and kicked with all his might at the man's chest. It worked, and Beast Boy looked on with shock as Slade flew backward.

_I-I…no way!_

Wasting no time, not allowing him to make a comeback, Beast Boy shed his skin, becoming a drooling wolf, and leapt upon the man who still lay on the ground from the punt. He then dug his teeth into Slade's throat, and cracked his deadly chops, the man's head rolled away.

_He's dead…I killed him…_he thought at first, watching the mask wobble a few feet ahead of him.

Yet, sparks and plugs crackled below him, and his hope and accomplishment sunk deep down as he realized it was just a lifeless robot copy.

Claps sounded slowly, and he whisked his head about, landing his eyes upon the real Slade that was emerging from the shadows. Without a thorough thought process, he charged again, and tackled the real one into the ground. Trying to, once again, snap his head in half, his tongue could almost taste the blood that he craved. Yet, Slade held a staff in between and gave a kick of his boot into the boy's stomach, sending him back.

"Well done," Slade's voice resonated all around him. "You went for the kill."

A thick growl reverberated from his stomach.

_I will kill him, no more hesitation…_

However, as he stalked again, trying his luck as a cheetah, the fur began to whisk away.

_No, no, no… not now._

He stood on his hind legs and tore at his own flesh, whisking away the skin, roaring and screaming in pain. The claws that dug into his body became fingernails and hands, the haunches became legs and snapped back into place, the bones crackling loudly as they maneuvered into human anatomy.

When Slade came closer, the boy was no longer standing and ripping away at himself, but now lay on the ground, shivering and sweating profusely in a bed of ash. He crouched to his level, relishing in the pain the boy still suffered from, however he also noticed his hand clenching.

He smirked but made no sound, allowing the boy to make a feeble attempt to take him off guard. Expectedly, the fist came around, and Slade caught it. His eyes widened for a second, wondering how Slade had been that fast, how he saw it coming, yet they closed in hurt as the hand was twisted behind his back.

"Underhanded," Slade noticed. "You're not as noble as you think you are. Terra seemed to think so, too, as I recall."

"I…will…kill you," Beast Boy snarled between clenched teeth.

"Yes, I remember that day," he continued, ignoring the boy's insignificant death threat. "She asked for your help, your trust, but you turned your back on her, and sent her right into my arms, and right to her ultimate demise."

He let a tear escape through his apathetic eyes.

"Shut up…" he warned again, and in response Slade lifted his arm higher, stretching the shoulder out of socket.

"It was your fault, really. Run away from it all you like, but in the end, you'll accept what you've done," Slade criticized, and then leaned in. "Murderer."

"SHUT UP!" he screamed, and wriggled out of Slade's hold.

He let him go, watching the child run away, back to his cage, surprisingly.

"I'm not a murderer…I'm not an animal…I'm not a pet…" he whispered to himself, trying to remember what good life had to offer, trying to recall the taste of something other than meat, trying to evoke the memories of good moments with his friends.

Every day they faded. He was starting to forget the miniscule things: Starfire's home meals, Robin's preference of fighting techniques, Cyborg's video game moves, Raven's favorite book…

Reaching to the shriveling recollections, he failed, and they fell into the void, refusing to come back.

"You are a murder, an animal, and, now," Slade's voice haunted in his brain. "You are my pet."

His shoulders were curled into his chest, his back turned to the front, his eyes shifted from side to side.

"I can't remember…" he choked out. "I can't remember…"

Slade raised an eyebrow beneath, and figured the child was homesick.

"Then forget."

His wild eyes pierced into the one, wondering if the man was real or not, was it all in his head? Was it so simple to forget the ones you loved that easily? Would it ease the burden? Maybe…maybe if he forgot, he wouldn't be in so much pain? The twinkling, new epiphany sparkled before him.

Pressing an advantage into the boy's psyche, Slade struck.

"They've forgotten you."

_They forgotten me? _

"No one cares about you."

_No one cares about me…?_

"You are alone."

_I…am…_

"Who could love a beast?"

_No one can love a beast._


	14. Chapter 14

Just when everyone seemed to settle down for a nice, long nap, the alarm sounded. Groaning in unison, Robin straggled to the computer and hit a few keys. Scrolling, he found the problem.

"Robbery in progress," he muttered.

"Where?" Cyborg asked, his hand covering his eyes from the blaring lights.

"Downtown," Robin simply stated, and then turned to the yawning Titans. "Move out."

With less enthusiasm than usual, they wandered out the doors. Within minutes, they arrived at the building on the fifth floor, and were certainly awakened by the sight. The burglary took place at a weapon facility, and instead of a missing tool, a clean getaway, the area was utterly chaotic.

The item stolen was not a major or incredibly destructive one, but just a simple gun. However, the gun in question sat on the ground, unscathed and remaining. Robin snatched it up.

"What's the meaning of this?" he wondered aloud, getting a closer look. "Why would they call us?"

"Because it's not a robbery," Raven answered, pointing at the wreckage ahead.

The walls torn to shreds, the smashed lights cascading sparks, and with bloody, dead guards hanging from the ceiling ritualistically, it resembled a massacre.

"Be on your toes, Titans. Whatever did this won't-"

Before he could finish his sentence, Robin was thrown against the wall by a massive creature, his head breaking the stone. Raven managed to knock the beast aside with a chunk of stone, but it dodged and instead turned its attention to her.

Taken by complete surprise, Robin fell to the ground, thoroughly unconscious. Without a leader, it became a disheveled dance of violence and disorder. Raven was able to block the swipes and bites of whatever the thing was, but was weakening by the moment, getting little help from her friends, who had tried to pull it away, but failed, being thrown away by its strength.

Finally, Starfire snatched a hold of the tail, spun, and threw it back, granting everyone a moment of breathing. Darkened by the taken out lights, they had not caught a glimpse of what it was. However, as it stumbled into daylight, they gasped in revelation.

_It can't be…_Raven thought, blinking in shock.

A massive wolf, chomping at the bit, its fur a solemn gray-black, and a familiar twinkle in its eyes stood before them. Painful collars, still oozing blood, snapped into its wrists and ankles as well as a demoralizing one choking the neck. As it charged them, yet again, going in and out of shadow, Raven saw a glimmer of metal upon its back, before it slashed her chest.

Coming back from numbing alarm, Cyborg stood in front of the wounded girl.

"Beast Boy?" Cyborg questioned, turning in circles as the creature stalked, this time a savage lion.

In response, it took a swipe, snagging a bit of circuitry from Cyborg.

"Dude! What's wrong with you? It's us!"

"We are your friends…" Starfire squeaked.

Only snarls and growls of hatred came in reply.

"Remember," Slade's voice chimed in his head. "You're alone. Attack, spare nothing."

The head of a lion became much more terrifying as it expanded and dissolved into a T-Rex, breaking through the building, it stomped, and the ground rippled and snapped beneath the remaining Titans as stone fell from the broken ceiling, the bodies of guards collapsing upon them as well.

"What're doing?!"

Its foot crashed through the floor, the support beams shattering and losing the weight of the building.

"Beast Boy. Stop." Raven, after stitching herself together with a piece of her cloak, called quietly to the gigantic terror.

The foot stopped in midair, and it peered down, the strained, pained, hurting eyes focusing on the girl beneath, her hands glowing, threatening.

"Move and it will be the last thing you ever do," she said, her voice wavering and her fingers aimed directly at him, the massive, floating, black spike of wall a foot from the back of his head.

Slade's hand whisked to his chin, and he pondered. His new pet would need to rely on something other than his animals, and it was the perfect opportunity to test his growing theory. It was becoming clear that his new pet was in danger of defeat, something he couldn't allow again.

"Listen to the girl, Beast," Slade commanded, and his thumb came down on the trigger. "And then kill her."

With a ground-shaking roar, before the eyes of the conscious team, their jaws dropping with worry and amazement, the unstoppable, extinct reptile began to liquefy. The teeth fell from the mouth, the skin shriveled, blood exploded from its entire body as it shrank. Instead of running or being brought to the knees, it tore away at itself, hastening the brutality.

Within seconds, gruesome ones, stood a boy. Past the rotting skin, the scabbed, shaved head and body, and the obvious Slade-branded cloth, it was their old friend, or what was left of him. However, instead of shouting his familiar "Dudes!" or making a pathetic joke, hostility and desperation flashed in his eyes.

Scrawny was the body, but strong was the anxiety, and before any of them could call to him like sirens, he struck. Moving with more speed and strength than they had ever seen, he threw a punch into Raven's bleeding stomach, just to flip and smash a foot against Cyborg. As the red-headed alien came swooping in, he snatched her hair and threw her through the massive hole in the ground, and down she fell.

Cyborg hung by a finger upon the cliff to the edge of another hole, and Raven was still against the wall, clutching her stomach, while Robin had managed to survive, he was still knocked out cold across the room.

Following orders, he charged Raven again, picking her up by the shoulders and slamming her against the cement.

"Azeroth-" she started to chant, the area about him growing black.

He kneed her in the wound again, her voice was cut off, and he followed through by dropping her to the ground, stamping his bare foot into her neck, he was prepared to end her.

"Return," Slade ordered, the voice shattering his mind. "I believe they got the message."

Confused, the shell of Beast Boy awaited the rush of DNA, which came a moment later. Giving one last look to Raven, who glared at him with her hair tangled in front of her eyes, he grimaced, and turned to walk away, revealing his mangled back.

Her eyes softened, hardened, and widened as she analyzed it.

The spine would have been seen easily, if there wasn't a metal leech plugged through it. Steel notches marking the hidden vertebra, it ran from the tip of the neck to the masked tailbone. It stretched not only through his spine, but away from it, clamping into the shoulders and down to the bend in the knees.

The skin had tried to grow over it, but was falling in crusted pieces as he marched away, toward the edge. Wires and twine could be seen attaching the spikes underneath, which with each passing moment, dug deeper into his flesh.

It became apparent that each day he wore it, was another day toward it becoming permanent. Her eyes never left the disgusting device, even as he jumped off the building, out of her line of sight.

More pressing matters to attend to, she hobbled toward where Cyborg dangled, and heaved him up with a stronger, magical hand, one still pressed to her stomach, trying to stop the bleeding.

Then, the two peered down the massive hole in the middle of the floor, and gazed upon Starfire, who looked like she had survived, but was groaning listlessly in a pile of rubble.

Cyborg offered to help, being in a better condition than the others, only a minor rake through his shoulder. She nodded sadly, and strode to check Robin, who laid disheveled and limp, a lump beginning to form on the back of his head, his forehead bleeding with a gash.

They had managed to survive, but still were resoundingly defeated and saddened. There was no questioning it, Beast Boy had been captured and brainwashed by Slade, who was making his return.


	15. Chapter 15

Beast Boy, shaken but still standing, revealed himself within the circle of light. Shadows engulfed the area, save where he stood, and he awaited the chilling voice of Slade.

"You followed all my orders," it came, ringing through the darkness and into his brain. "I dare say that's a first."

Blinking but not responding, Beast Boy licked his chops, his body growing accustomed to the only meal he received. The chunk of raw meat came, skidding across the floor and right in front of his feet. Switching to an animal that could tear at it with ease, he dug his teeth in; the remaining blood off the beef seeped upon the floor and stained his fur.

Footsteps came, along with the blare of the monitors reawakened. He saw them in the corner of his eye, but the dinner too sweet, his taste buds refused to pay homage. However, his master did not strike nor offend, enjoying the way he had degraded the boy after only a short couple of weeks. The possibility of what he could achieve in a month sat flicking across his tongue, he was so close.

A world without Titans, who would stop him? Perhaps the other collaborations of heroes, but if news of his victory spread, it would be more than just self righteous teens drawn to him. Although he never played well with others, he would accept help should he need it.

The city, the country, the world, it all lay before his fingertips, just for the taking, and all of it possible because of the downfall of a little, green boy. His hand came down upon the head of the child, who was now posing as his familiar wolf. He studied the fur; the color was beginning to come back.

Stopping mid-bite, he slowly lifted his eyes, and peered curiously at the man attempting to pet him.

Was he actually showing affection?

Their eyes connected, and Slade simply narrowed his menacingly making sure that the boy did not press his luck or think anything of what he was doing. Casting his back down, Beast Boy started to eat once again, the smell becoming too overwhelming to pass up another second.

"When we meet them again," Slade said, trying to not crush his skull in between his fingers, he swallowed down his bubbling sadism. "I want you to bring Robin and Raven to me. Kill the others."

Wolfing down the last of it, his eyes flashed with understanding.

"If you succeed," he continued. "I will consider bringing Terra back to life. If not, I will destroy her in front of your very eyes."

His tail thumped upon the ground twice.

_Slade wasn't lying…_

"Good boy. Follow me."

Cocking his head, he did not question but trailed. Slade led him to a familiar, cut-up steel table, one that still plagued his mind and dreams. Whimpering quietly, he lowered his muzzle to the ground; trying to avoid staring at the rows of needles.

"It seems the chemical is starting to dissipate," he explained, unhooking the straps and shifting the tray closer. "Another round must be implanted."

The wolf looked both ways, his tail starting to go still and ears going flat, he whined again, it had been so painful last time…

He could still feel everything digging into his skin, it never gave him peace, always felt and acknowledged every waking moment, and feared in slumber.

Not wasting another second listening to the boy's complaints, he pressed a thumb into the control in his palm. Melting, the boy appeared, and he snagged his collar as he convulsed on the ground.

The experiments began again.

"I can't believe…"

"I know."

"Raven, you were…"

"Yes."

"I'm sor-"

"It's fine."

"No, really…"

"It's. Fine. What matters now is that we find Slade's hideout."

"Shouldn't you get that cut checked ou-"

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You don't sound…"

"If you keep bugging me, then I won't be."

"If you say…"

"Quiet."

The team, save Raven, were still in a state of shock, and being as that the dark girl had predicted and warned them over and over about Beast Boy's predicament, they all turned to her like helpless children.

Robin was still weak from the concussion he suffered and was bed ridden until Raven deemed otherwise, yet without his serious demeanor, Starfire and Cyborg hadn't stopped chattering since they got back to the tower.

"What are you doing?" the scarlet-haired alien asked, shifting closer to Raven as she hit a multitude of keys and studied the monitors carefully.

"I'm trying to give us an idea of where he might be hiding."

She was mapping out possible areas that would appeal to the masked psychopath. Abandoned warehouses with deep basements, industrial settings, and in the city were the requirements she thought would be most attractive.

However, that was a majority of the town. The scope was too big, and even if they searched twenty-four-seven for a week they would only cover half the city, and no one was ready physically to do such a thing anyway.

Every second Slade had Beast Boy was another day closer to their demise. They may have been off guard when they first saw him, but it couldn't be denied that he could have done away with all four of them if he wanted.

Fortunately, it wasn't like Slade to carry out such a thing quickly, if he wanted to kill them, he would do it over the course of weeks, as was his psychotic way.

Raven buried her head down, feeling more like the failure-hating Robin than herself.

"We'll never find him at this rate," she relayed to the two.

"Is there anything that can slim the search down?" Cyborg questioned, his one human eye reflecting his sleepless nights of worry for his lost friend.

"I've tried everything I can think of, but each outcome is worse than the last."

"Maybe…perhaps…?" Starfire was thinking, puzzling out a solution but failing to.

They peered at her, eyebrows raised in minor annoyance, but turned to the monitor again after she gave them a little shrug.

"We need Robin," Raven sighed. "He knows Slade better than all of us combined."

"If anyone can find Slade, its Robin alright," Cyborg agreed, folding his arms. "Think he could take it?"

"No," she replied, pressing down the migraine sprouting. "He'll need at least a couple days until he can walk let alone study criminal behavior."

"Can't you heal him?"

"It's not that simple," she snapped. "If it was a bone or a muscle I could have him up and ready within seconds. But it's his mind. And if I mess up or dig too deep or make any kind of incorrect move…"

"He's gone," he finished for her, shaking his head.

They both heaved aggravated sighs, Beast Boy needed them, badly, and they couldn't help him. The future was certainly grim.


	16. Chapter 16

The days passed on. Slade went quiet since the attack; the Titans were allowed to recover physically, although the same could not be said mentally. Their chipper, naïve friend was now a tool of destruction and hate, simply put, he was dangerous.

Their dissolving hope continued, and each day they didn't see him, they become more callous to him. In essence, they forgot who the real Beast Boy was, or the one they defined him to be, at least.

Raven strode to the hospital ward, she had checked in on the injured boy-wonder every day for the last couple of weeks, preparing him for the assault of facing his fears again.

"How are you feeling today?" she questioned, her eyes beginning to glow white.

Before he could respond with a muttered "Good" her energy overtook him, sifting through what was wounded and what was not, she had a good definition of his bodily status.

"Everything seems better," she said, and furrowed her brows to double check that statement.

"Thanks," he responded, the mask still remaining but contrasting sharply with his hospital gown. "Can I go?"

Heaving a sigh between stressed shoulders she sat upon the lumpy bed.

"I don't know if you were conscious, but there's something I need to tell you," she began, trying to say what needed to be said as gently as possible.

Crumpling with confusion, his masked eyes pierced, not liking her tone.

"What is it, Rae?"

"Well…" she started again, looking at the wall. "The creature that attacked us, the one that hurt you, is someone we know."

"Did Adonis transform back into his were-form?" he immediately asked, running through possible candidates.

She shook her head.

"It isn't a villain."

"Wh-?"

"It was Beast Boy."

"…impossible."

"It was."

"How can that-?"

"Slade."

His features shrunk back, it was easy to see his distaste in what she just said.

"Raven," he said, placing a hand on his forehead. "I know that you think that…"

"Robin," she interrupted. "The others can testify to it. We saw him. He attacked like he didn't know us, and he had Slade's handiwork all over him. If you could just…"

"He's not back."

"Yes, he is. I know it's hard for you because of your history, but…"

"I want to see Star."

"What?"

His gaze, now hardened, his shoulders straight and unfeeling he crossed his arms.

"I want. To see. Star."

Mirroring him, she folded her own arms and then rolled her eyes.

"Don't believe me? Fine, Starfire will say exactly what I just did."

With that, she leapt up and went to the lounge, where she dragged a certainly surprised Starfire to where the mulish Robin lay.

"You talk to him," was all she said before she closed the door and waited patiently outside.

_Of all the stupid…stubborn, moronic…_she swore in her head.

A light bulb exploded.

Cringing, she took a tranquil breath.

_Relax…calm down…_

She flipped her hood over her head, trying to hide her embarrassment and, unsuccessfully, steady her thoughts, regain her jumbling nerves. Not once had she ever lost her powers so easily, she may have hated to admit it before everything, but she missed Beast Boy.

Obviously it was more than just a homesick feeling, it was an obsessive worry, a constant presence in her mind and, at this point and time, she would have done just about anything to get him home safe.

She tried not to let her mind wander to a dark place but, too late, as she went over the countless tortures Slade may have put him through. She could barely dare to think how he managed to attach the horrible, mysterious device to his back.

She had described it to Cyborg, hoping he would have a clue to what it was and how to dislodge it; however, she couldn't describe it in the best detail.

"Look, I don't really know how to explain it, but…" she had said.

"Right, right. Metal notches, thin, weird wiring, and…spikes?" he interrupted, sketching it out.

"Yes."

He scribbled down a few finishing touches and showed her a rendition.

She shook her head.

"The frame's all wrong," she critiqued pointing to the middle of the figure's back. "It stretched out to his forearms and legs, and the wiring was thin and spindly."

Furrowing his brow, Cyborg's face fell somberly as he mapped it out.

"Raven, if that's what it looks like…" he almost whispered out, nodding to the picture. "And you said it was attached? And it was diggin' deeper?"

She nodded.

"Lord knows how much pain he endured gettin' it put on," he observed, flicking his eyes away.

They sat in silence for a moment, letting the waves of nausea and empathy flow between.

She had to break it; she couldn't fall, not now, not when they were already so weak.

"Beast Boy's strong," she spoke sharply. "Now what's important is finding out what it does, stopping it, and making sure it hasn't become permanent."

His eyes blinking back a frustrated, sober tear, he nodded to her orders, and she left him alone, too heartbroken to see another one of her teammates depressed.

"Raven?"

Coming out of her thoughts, she snapped her sunken head up to see a timid Starfire fumbling with her thumbs. Her hood, which had fallen back, was firmly placed back in front her face, shielding her saddened eyes.

She ushered Starfire to speak.

"I have spoken to Robin, and he is quite convinced," she reported. "Although I do believe he's angry."

Slacked-jawed, she couldn't believe the quiet Starfire had actually persuaded the surly Robin that Slade had, indeed, come back.

_It's about damn time…_she seethed.

"I think it would be wise if we left him alone, for he…"

"Fine," Raven snapped. "But if he's not down and helping the rest of us find Beast Boy in thirty minutes…"

Her eyes doubled and glowed red for a moment, letting them communicate the threat. Starfire squeaked in fear and nodded vigorously, giving a smile as Raven stomped away.

_Of course he would listen to his girlfriend, but no, not the rest of us. What a-_

"Raven!"

Cyborg's booming voice carried through the halls and she phased into her soul avatar quickly, flying off in his direction. As he called for her a third time, she transfigured through a wall to where he stood, his eyes alight with an advantage.

"What?" she almost yelled, causing him to jump.

"Jeez, I didn't see you…" he breathed out, catching a surprised pant.

Raising a brow, she did not seem very pleased he had screamed for her and didn't expect her arrival.

"A-anyway," he stuttered and pointed a harsh finger into the picture of the exoskeleton. "I think I may have figured out what this thing does."

Leaning forward, she nodded.

"Well we all saw it- Beast Boy -rip it...himself apart, right?"

"Yes."

"And then Beast Boy appeared in his human form and took us on that way, right?"

"Yes."

"But it makes no sense, he had us on the ropes," he said, waiting for her to catch on, she didn't.

"Thanks for the update?" she said sarcastically, folding her arms. "Slade probably just ordered him to go back into a human. What's the big deal?"

"But why would he tear at himself like that?"

"Because Slade probably tortured him to his last wit-"

"Stop," he growled, the image of his small, green friend getting pounded into the ground by Slade pushing him to a cliff he didn't want to fall off. "What if it had something to do with the thing on his back? What if Slade found a way to control Beast Boy's…beasts?"

The thought had occurred to her, but such technology was nonexistent.

"Impossible."

"I checked his room," he said. "And all the serums keeping his were-form away are gone."

"So? He probably just lost them," she flicked, refusing to acknowledge the growing knot. "And how do you know you were being thorough? It could easily be under his bed or in his closet collecting dust."

"Raven, I'm tellin' ya, I know what I know. I know that they're all missing because the backups in my lab are gone, too. I know that whatever happened to them or whoever stole them is connected to the exoskeleton. And I know that either someone got into the tower or Beast Boy finally took his medicine."

Given that the latter would never happen, not in this lifetime at least, Raven considered. Then, suddenly, digging through the memories, she stumbled upon a haunting one, one that had been covered in all the chaos of his kidnapping.

"Slade…" she said breathlessly, her limbs tingling with the adrenaline of discovery. "Beast Boy said he got into the tower."

"What?!" Cyborg almost screeched. "He got in my tower? My tower?!"

"Beast Boy said that…" she stopped, peering at Cyborg sheepishly.

"What? What did he say?"

She heaved a sigh; the truth would have to come out some time.

"When he escaped that night…" she began, shifting her eyes to her feet. "It wasn't because he was crazy or insane, but he received a visitor…"

"You're not sayin'…?" Cyborg gasped, drinking it in he sat back into his chair. "That son of a bitch. I swear, when we see him again… I'll kill him! I should have known…" his eyes switched to Raven from the floor. "Why didn't you tell us before?"

"No one would believe me," she shrugged. "And after we saw him, I just got so wrecked by all the chaos, I just…"

"Forgot? How could you…?"

"You try leading this team!" she snapped, her anger rising slightly above the serene line. "I don't get to cry or grieve or anything because I constantly have to make sure all of you are fine. So, sorry if I let it slip my mind, but you try remembering everything when you're the one taking care of four people at once!"

An uneasy silence befell the room, her fists shook and she was trying very hard not to lop his robotic head off she was so livid. They whined and harassed her for a month, first for believing she was seeing things like Beast Boy and then turning to her to look after them and give them the answers to all their questions while trying and trying not to give into despair herself.

No rest for the angry Raven.

Cyborg began to cough out an apology, and she eased her burning stare. Taking a breath, a long, arduous, peaceful one, she placed her index finger and thumb squarely on the bridge of her nose and pinched.

"It's…fine," she snarled. "Before I explode, tell me what your idea was about stopping it."

Raising his shoulders and sitting up, he was thankful for an excuse to start talking.

"If Slade is using it to affect all of his forms, not just the were-one, then it should be relatively simple following his formula to achieve it, and therefore, develop an antidote."

"Great," she said as enthusiastically as she could.

Quiet.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Can't you make an antidote right now?"

"Well…no."

Quiet.

"Why. Not?" she managed to say through grinding teeth.

"I can't be exactly sure what equation he used to make it. I would need a sample if I was to create the inverse. Or else it might take a while to guess and check it."

"How long?"

"Year, at best."

Quiet.

"You can't be serious…"

Quiet.

"It's not so bad…"

"How. Is. It. Not. That. Bad? Is it even possible to get it? Slade won't just hand one over."

"Well, if our theory is correct, then we could snatch a sample directly from Beast Boy."

"What do you mean?"

"If Slade wants ultimate control, then he would have to keep a heavy dosage of the stuff in BB's system. If we can get close enough, I can grab it, come back here, develop the cure, and we'd be all set."

"Except getting close enough to retrieve it, is…"

"Unlikely."

Quiet.


	17. Chapter 17

"Raven?"

A drool pool aptly formed beneath her calm mouth, her eyes began to twitch and stutter.

"Raven…?"

Flipping her hands upon the edges of the hard table, she groaned and slurped, creaking open her massive blues just to see Starfire lightly pressing into her shoulder.

Finally getting the strength to lift herself up, she peered down at the sheets of paper with, now smudged, scribbling, and she remembered how she fell asleep after exhaustedly writing plans of action and unleashing her many thoughts.

"Yeah…Star?" she groaned, stretching her back. "What's up?"

It was 6am, and the light was still stifled by a gray dawn, only foggy silver streaked from the small window on the first floor.

Looking this way and that, the poor alien was not too sure how to take Beast Boy's predicament. Even though she had been through childhood trauma, it was hard to explain the cruelty of Earth. Caught between making sure Robin was stable and worrying about the green teen, she was in an emotional limbo.

Twitching her thumbs together and repeatedly tucking a hair behind her ear, she peered nervously at the grumpy, groaning girl.

"Has there been any luck in finding friend Beast Boy?" she asked in a whisper, the sadness in her eyes creeping in currents.

Caught off guard not by her quiet or gentle nature but the severity of her tone, Raven shrugged mindlessly.

"Oh…dear," she stuttered, beginning to sob, pinkish tears streaming down her face.

_Not tears…_Raven dreaded, although she wasn't hesitant in trying to calm the weeping girl down.

"It's ok, Star, we'll find him," she lied, awkwardly patting the tall teen on the back. "And then everything will be back to normal."

She sniffed and swiped a hand beneath her nose, nodding.

"Do not take this in an incorrect manner, but I fear not only for Beast Boy but for someone else as well," she murmured.

Not getting the gist of what the formal foreigner was relaying, Raven raised an unkempt brow.

"What do you mean?"

She looked over her shoulder, peering at the open door.

"W-well…" she said with a trembling lip. "I…I told Robin what you told me to tell him, a-and, he reacted very strangely."

On the verge of another breakdown, Raven stepped in again.

"Oh, don't get upset by Robin, Star," she said gently. "He's probably just angry because of his past with Slade. He never really got over him."

Shifting her emerald eyes back and forth, she nodded like she understood but was still confused.

"Oh, ok," she said finally. "Thank you, friend Raven. You are very wise."

Handing her a box of tissue to wipe her face back into normalcy, Starfire ripped them all out and blew, the ferocity of her sneeze burned the layers of the Kleenex into ash.

"Feel better?" Raven asked cautiously, her eyes tracing the pile of smoldering dust on the floor.

"Yes, although my heart is still beating painfully for Beast Boy and Robin," she giggled emptily. "I will remain strong like you."

Smiling, then frowning, Raven blinked a few times.

The alarm cracked, making both the girls cringe.

Shaking her head, believing Starfire simply made an error of speech, Raven dragged the alien through a wall and into the lounge, awaiting the rest of the team. Cyborg came moments later, and Robin had already been ready, sitting on the couch, awaiting a problem to arise. He had been itching to get out of the hospital bed.

Yet, the call brought their anticipating faces to grief-stricken ones.

"It's him," Raven spoke when no one else would, and she nodded to Cyborg, who was already on his way to the lab to grab the things he needed.

Rummaging through the many useless boxes, Beast Boy tore everything to shreds.

_Master says I should make it worse...make it worse…make it worse…don't disappoint master. Pain happens. Pain happens._

Now ripping the wallpaper off and covering the body of a security guard he had killed on the way in, he snapped and shredded with more ferocity.

"They're here, pet," Slade's voice sung in his ear. "Remember, bring Robin and Raven to me."

Growling an understanding, he morphed into a rat, hiding in the shadows, specks of a light bulb and a shattered window lay all over the floor as he scurried, he managed to avoid the pricks.

Moments later the footsteps of his enemies rung, vibrating like earthquakes.

"Remember last time…" the voice of Robin warned, and he could hear his hair as it swayed from side to side, peering about him for another surprise attack.

"He's here," a monotone voice reported, he heard her nod, the skin rubbing against itself, the shifting of follicles.

Click, click, the sonic cannon was prepared, locked and loaded.

An illuminated light sparkled in the air, shooing away the darkness, Starfire's hands glowed emerald.

"Take the robot out first," was the order.

Not even a hesitating paw, or a wistful tear shed, and the beast ran through the trash, creating an obvious noise. Expectedly, three bolts came next, missing him by a foot, he went around the room unbeknown to the titans, with their backs turned.

Wrapped up in his choices for attack, he did not hear the Empath whisper "Get ready, get ready" to the group. The massive brown bear came up behind and rose its paw in a slash, that if Cyborg had not ducked, he surely would have died.

Eyes glowing white, hands turning black, Raven wrapped the dark creature in a rope of shadow energy. Robin flew in the air, staff at the ready, and cracked it into the bear's stomach. Curling into itself, it roared and snarled with such ferocity that they all hesitated for a split second.

Shifting back into a miniscule creature, it snapped the tie with Raven.

"Keep your eyes open…"

Forming a tight circle, they scanned their eyes this way and that, expecting anything out of the wild Beast Boy. The gray dawn, now noon, still covered the sky in a dull black, the heavy clouds threatening rain, the air was ripe with its arrival.

The dinosaur charged, its claws raised and ready, it stood at eleven feet, and came from the right to where Cyborg stood, his sonic blaster pointing in the air. Not enough time, the slash came down out of the dark, and before they could yell a warning, the nails thrashed upon air as Raven pulled the robot-boy out of the way.

Before it could finish the job, Starfire took it head on, her hands grasping its legs and threatening to swing it about, however, before her grip could secure, the scaly haunches became small claws of a bat, and it flew right over her head, just to face off on the opposite side as lion.

The dance began again, they squared to face each other, Raven stepped forward.

"Beast Boy…" she said, raising a diplomatic hand. "Stop this."

A low growl escaped his terrifying snout, the song of a predator.

"We're your friends, remember?" she snapped, holding steady. "Don't you recognize us?"

Leaning forward in his chair, Slade pondered what the boy's reaction would be to the temptress.

_Friends…_he repeated in his savage mind, a hole opening just to be shut again, he roared. _I am alone._

Leaping into the air, he swiped with unnatural speed, tearing into her shoulder.

"Raven!" Cyborg yelled, coming to her side, checking the scratch.

Starfire and Robin were grunting, giving punches and kicks to a nimble chimpanzee on the other side of the room.

Breathing through the pain she yelled:

"Go! I'm fine, just get him!"

Laughing, Slade knew he had achieved what he had long sought after.

Snapping his jaws, he avoided a kick and starbolt, and managed to give out a whip of his claws, yet ultimately was crisped by a flash of blue light.

Yelping, he saw his shoulder melting, and he whimpered all the more, backing into a corner.

The fighting stopped, Cyborg held Robin's arm back as he intended to go for the kill.

"Whoa, stop. He's hurt."

"Isn't that the point?"

"He's still our friend."

"Not anymore. If he attacks to kill us, then we do the same."

"Since when has that ever been our strategy?"

"Since now."

"We showed you compassion, why not him?"

"That was different…"

"No! It wasn't!"

"Friends please…"

"God, my shoulder…"

"Attack. Attack now while they're off guard."

"Just let me check him out."

"No, we will not cater to the enemy!"

"But, Robin…he is our friend."

"He was."

"Azeroth, Metrion…"

"Now, Beast, or…"

Too many words, too many thoughts all jumbled into senseless noise, his ears exploded as his body ached. The animal took over in the chaos. It went too fast, too fast. Before he knew it, he just wanted it all to stop, just to stop.

Emerging from the shadows, a familiar face appeared.

"BB!" Cyborg boomed, hoping that this would be the last of it as the boy approached.

They all stopped and stared, even Slade was perplexed by the screen.

"Halt, you are under arrest…" Robin began, still not giving up on the crusade to bring the traitor boy to justice.

"Give it a rest will ya?"

"He needs to pay for his crimes."

"It's not his crimes that need to be paid, but Slade's."

Laughter erupted, the rotting boy with the metal and leather strapped into his flesh was eerily chuckling.

"N-not mine…" he choked out, his voice far from its former self, rasping and low. "Not his…yours."

"Friend, what are you speaking of?" peeped the alien.

His fully black eyes, the pupils hidden within the shade, moved to look at the sprightly girl.

Before they could shudder with disgust, he struck. Leaping as a disturbed teen, ending as a black panther, he tackled her to the ground, his teeth digging, the claws scratching deep, it wasn't three seconds before he was flung away, his back breaking against the cement wall with a crack as his bloody chops smeared the ground.

"S-star…?"


	18. Chapter 18

His cape wrapped around him, Robin kneeled down to the broken, bleeding girl with the scarlet hair. Her eyes swirled about the room, trying to stay in consciousness for her last few seconds of life. Her stomach fully ripped open, the oozing red liquid seeping around her, a sober pool.

"Oh…God…" Robin whimpered out, his hands clutching at his hair, breathing loudly in and out. "S-stay with me Star! Stay with me…Stay…"

His tears were leaking through the mask, he was sobbing, and the once strong, invincible boy wonder was shaking with physical pain, convulsing with terror unimagined, and loneliness unthought-of.

"RAVEN!" he shouted suddenly, still staring at the wound. "DO SOMETHING!"

Her own injury hampering her arrival, Cyborg ran to fetch her and brought her softly to the gurgling alien that was losing the brave fight.

Still hanging on herself, Raven's bleary vision zeroed in on the gaping, red mouth in the middle of the girl and heavily placed her hands in the thick of it. Blood seeping up to her wrists, she closed her eyes and allowed her energy to pass from soul to soul, body to body.

The black pulsated down from her eyes, spiking as a deformed raven into the skin, the muscle, the bones, and did what it could. Starfire's face pinched up, the pain transfiguring into thick beads of sweat, and low groans and moans.

Eyes firmly sewn together, concentrating all her willpower into healing the poor, little alien, and she succeeded, for as the raven slithered through anatomy, touching its slimy wings against the insides, it crawled back to its creator, reporting triumph.

The twisted features of her face became relaxed, and she went limp with blissful sleep.

"Thank God…"

"Jesus Christ…"

"If only…if only…" another voice on the wind congratulated.

Robin, now more furious than ever, Starfire's blood smeared across his face, his green gloves smothered in red, clenched a fist and peered at the boy that came for more, mumbling incoherencies.

Limping his way as a human, he clapped sarcastically, disturbingly.

"H-how…good," he muttered. "You must be so happy."

Slade sat back, amused, his dog was trying his luck at psychological pain, it would certainly be interesting.

Cyborg, still feeling pity for the brainwashed friend, managed to, once again, hold Robin in a bear hug as he struggled to decapitate the beast who almost killed Starfire, his possible one love.

Still, he hobbled, coming up to where Raven stood, smiling grotesquely, it was a wonder that none of them smashed his face into the ground, wiping the grin away with a resounding punch, yet they allowed him to say his piece.

His arm burned badly, they could almost see the bone, and the rest of his naked, gray skin crying red, he didn't look like he could possibly give them another round of fighting. His abnormal eyes flicked back and forth, and there was an odd, tranquil silence that fell between them, awkward as it was.

His gaze fell upon the shallowly-breathing alien that had managed to escape her cruel fate.

"You…must be so happy…" he repeated, spellbound by the blood that still crept about.

"I'll…argh…tell you how….happy! I am…" Robin threatened, his eyes burning behind the thin mask as he was held easily by the strong Cyborg.

Casually, as the boy was entranced by the blood and the girl, Raven pick-pocketed Cyborg, digging into the bag he had tied around him. Snatching a needle, she snuck it into her cloak.

Something good had to come of their meeting.

"Must be so happy…"

Cyborg stole a glance at Raven.

"What is he talkin' about, Rae?"

She gave him a shrug and a nod, her eyes flicking to the bag and back up.

They would have to be quick, it was now or never.

Slade, still puzzled by his pause, wondered what his pet had up his sleeve, yet he let him be, he had trained him too well, and he had a sliver of faith that the boy would never be captured.

As Robin struggled, now less violently as he lost energy, Cyborg tossed him away and immediately reached for the gray boy.

"So…happy…" he murmured, his eyes shifting to the teen approaching.

He fell, tackled by the robot, willingly, and Raven, in a daze, tossed the syringe to Cyborg who easily plugged it in, and pulled.

About to intervene and command the boy to attack, Slade held back as he saw a glimmer in the boy's eye.

Finally, as Cyborg packed the full needle back into the bag, Beast Boy rose, and in a swift motion knocked an ape punch into the back of Cyborg's head, splitting it open and crawling in as a mouse, he scurried about in the limp robot's head, he expanded into an alligator, and the robotic side of Cyborg exploded and he leapt back out.

Turning to snap his powerful jaws into Robin's leg, he threw the already shaken and stirred boy back into the wall. Starfire remained limp upon the ground, her body regenerating every second, yet unable to assist.

Screaming, Robin was slamming a fist into the floor in pain and frustration.

It all happened too fast for Raven to stop, her eyes wide, she was in perilous shock. Cyborg…a smoking heap, the circuitry shattered about him like a martyred halo, while Starfire slept calmly, the bloody pedals serving as a bed, and Robin yelling bloody-murder in the background, it was a lot to drink in.

"Beast Boy!" he shouted over and over. "I will kill you! I will kill you!"

The possessed child, his ribs sticking out blatantly, his flesh tattered and torn, the scabs flicked off as he walked, the collars distributing them like flower girls. Once again, he kneeled to Raven's eye level and stared into her, making her blood run cold, her face tingle with numb sensation.

"G-Garfield…" she wondered, unable to look away from the black pools of his eyes.

He shook his head no, and snatched her hand in his, rubbing it thoughtfully, like he was trying to remember a dream of a dream, or a memory within a maze of shadow.

"Don't let me fade away…" he muttered to himself, and Raven couldn't understand.

"W-what?"

In the space of second, in the blink of an eye, he starting convulsing and she felt as the currents of burning pain connected the two. It traveled up her arms and struck her spine and brain, torching her to the core, and after moments, she was down, her eyes closed.

Used to it, the boy shook his head a few times, running a hand over his neck and hair to stop his shaking.

"What did you do to her?!" Robin screeched.

Ignoring the petty comments of a strange comrade, he studied the twice-burned girl, and brushed her hair out of her face, trying to snatch a recollection from the back of his mind.

"Get them both," an ear-splitting voice shattered his mind, and he couldn't understand what he was doing. "Bring them here."

Nodding, he flipped the girl over his shoulder and switched into a gorilla, approaching the yelling boy who was now throwing sharp things at him, he swiped them away with ease, they were similar to the training objects his master had thrown to him, and he came upon the black-haired, weirdly-dressed, and bleeding teen and smacked him upon the head.

Eye narrowed in glee, he watched as the boy ran off with them both, and he shut off the screen, sitting in the dark, a chuckle began, then laughing, then he was doubled over, barely able to contain such feelings, his cold, mad giggles rung off the lonely walls.


	19. Chapter 19

Suspended, dragged, groggy, all were words to describe her situation. Hung from a medieval-looking chain, her eyes opened in slits, her body screamed in pain as her nerves sparked back to life. Twisting numbly to the right she recognized another body dangling beside her.

His green gloves, ripped jersey, and bloodied mask were familiar, yet her mind was still connecting the wires.

_R-robin? _She wondered, feeling as though she answered incorrectly.

Yet as her vision cleared, she was sure now, yes, the person beside her was in fact the boy wonder. Two birds in a cage, of a feather, hung together. Swaying as bodies will in gallows, she twisted all about, searching for a clue to where she was and who had done this to them both.

Simply, they were locked, tied down, swinging, in a barren, decrepit room full of wandering shadows. Although she was curious, dying to find out really, she didn't find a use in screaming for a rescuer or an answer. Instead, she resolved to wake the unconscious friend, perhaps they could figure out a wily solution to the obvious problem of intimidating capture.

"Robin!" she hissed as quietly as possible. "Robin!"

Remaining frustratingly unaware, she grimaced in annoyance. If her feet had not been anchored as well, she would have kicked him awake. However, she had to result to barbaric means to rouse Robin.

"Of course," she said, groaning. "If we survive this…"

Wading up a glob of saliva, she judged the distance, believing it was possible to hit the target. Then, before the gruesome liquid exited in a spurt, she remembered she was capable of escaping without such awful means.

Rolling her eyes, kicking herself for even conjuring such an immature idea, her eyes sparkled silver, the black energy responded, thankfully, and she snapped the shackles. Yet, the engulfing shade of darkness fooled her, and she fell farther than she expected.

Down she went, the wind whipping her eyes into water, she managed to float before she crashed into the cement below. Yet, the area was not as optimistic as she thought it would be, and instead of a trivial, banal room, it was a house of mirrors. Rows of reflections circled around her, thousands of images of herself rotating about.

Stumbling to a weak knee, it was clouding her mind, breaking concentration, and she longed for the blissful chains.

Yet, it wasn't long until someone was aware of her presence. Footsteps ringing like ominous chimes, she heard it beyond the nausea flowing in her blood.

"Who's there?" she bravely asked, hating surprises.

Shutting her eyes, the only loophole, she let her powers be her sight and expanded the black raven, letting it soar its way around and detect what she needed to know.

However, she would never get the chance to have an advantage, because a strong hand grasped her arm and began to drag her, and she was too weak to fight against the grain.

"Let me…go!" she snapped viciously.

Paying no heed to her cries, the brute who snatched her harshly led on, and as light became more apparent, as she was able to once again open her eyes and not see the dizzying reflections, the figure became more familiar.

"Beast Boy?" she questioned softly.

Stopping, the boy with the black eyes and soulless body turned, recognizing the beginnings of his name. His long, pointed ears flopped to one side as he peered at her, the ripples of obsidian confused by this strange girl.

He hadn't been spoken to anyone other than his master…at least not in his short memory.

Surprised he responded, she pushed.

"Beast Boy?" she asked again, and he still stared at her, she tried not to shudder. "Do you know me?"

He shook his head, she was aggravatingly familiar, but he couldn't place a name to a face, or was it a face to a name?

Breath exited her, and he wondered why she did such a strange thing. Obviously she hadn't been running or exercising as of late, so why did she exhale so loudly? Pursing his lips, he mimicked, doing a soft, weak faux-sigh.

This made her humph in a wisp of laughter.

How peculiar she was.

Yet, he had wasted enough time doddling with the purple-haired, pale girl.

As soon as she felt the tension in the air ease, it spiked again as he continued down wherever they were. Steps appeared, and he treaded down them, and she tried not to trip over her own feet.

During this time, she probably should have knocked him out, maybe try an escape of some sort, but it was her only chance, the last time she might see him and be able to truly influence him. She wasn't afraid of the solution to the mystery, the last piece of the puzzle, but she wasn't idiotic either. This moment could be her last, and she was spending it with a brainwashed ex-friend in a murky corridor.

How Raven of her.

Slade was behind it all, that was obvious, and she relished in throwing him around like a rag doll for what he had done to the green child, for how many sleepless nights he had caused the team, for the death of Cyborg.

Sucking in a breath as she remembered the massacre, she tried desperately not to cry or release any emotion that may cause the death of them both.

Never would she hear his familiar "Boo-ya!" or laugh at his jokes, or console him when he had one of his envious days of self-hatred for his body, nor would she ever see him smile or sweat or fight or frown or cry or anything. He would never think, his mind would never turn, the wheels forever stuck in the mud of death, never to be set free.

She couldn't help thinking it was all her fault. If she had just…

_Stop. _She reminded herself, it wasn't the proper moment of grief, and if things went poorly, she would see her friend again shortly.

The girl was dragging, her mind was somewhere far away, but he didn't mind. He had observed her through his master's screen, and she always intrigued him most of all. Silent, strong, smart, and quick on her feet, she reminded him of master. Yet, she was no match for him, not at all, no one was.

Hoping that his owner would allow him to keep her, he made his way to the final gate, the doorway evident in the distance.

When he first ventured out of this place, it was also recognizable, and he remembered he had spoken with the girl from his dreams here many times. He didn't recollect much, but a few images remained: Shattered mirrors, a large, spinning wheel, and a heart shaped box.

He liked to think it was a fun place, one that he could enjoy and make wonderful stories out of, for the objects in his mind weren't connected well.

Maybe he had been turning in that metal circle, maybe he accidently broke a mirror as he spun, maybe someone offered him a sparkling silver box just for him to keep his secrets.

He twisted the knob and pushed, heaving along the faraway girl, and, as expected, his master was waiting for him, sitting in his usual stone seat, hiding in the shadows.

The girl came back from her day dreaming, sad as they might be, and narrowed her eyes in hatred at the figure in the cowardly dark.

"Ah, Raven. So glad you could make it."


	20. Chapter 20

Seeing him again was awful. It brought back all the times he had tormented her, Robin, all of them, really. It had been Robin's turn, then Terra's, and finally it was coming to Beast Boy. Would his mad escapade for an apprentice ever end?

"Slade," she said as if it was the vilest swear in the universe.

He crossed his legs, although she couldn't see his disgusting metal mask, she felt his eye ever watching, and she very much wanted to gouge it out right then and there. Would Beast Boy be able to stop her?

She lurched forward, expecting the green friend to be caught off guard and let go, yet, he surprised her instead. Snatching onto her cloak, he yanked it with a mighty force. She fell clumsily, foolishly, the contact with the cement bruising her tailbone painfully.

If Beast Boy had been there, he would have laughed, and she would have scowled, yet he didn't chuckle, giggle or snort, but simply cast his eyes away, worried that his master would not like her aggressive attitude and, then, he wouldn't be able to have a friend.

Tsks came, incinerating her emotions further.

"Raven," he finally spoke again, his timing ever perfect and aggravatingly arduous. "Somehow I thought you would conduct yourself in a better manner." He sighed dramatically. "But what can you expect from a Titan?"

Snarling, she lifted herself up, and even though Beast Boy pulled her close, twisting her arm, and throwing his own across her neck as quickly as possible, her glare only intensified.

"Why don't you come and find out?" she snapped back venomously, her neck bulging against the gray forearm. "I can show you just how…"

"Patience, girl, patience," he interrupted, her threats not appealing to him in the slightest. "I will let you fight for your life, don't fret about that. Be grateful."

Before she bark another tedious comeback, he pressed another one of her many buttons.

She may have tried to be calm and monotone, but she was perhaps the easiest to anger.

"Speaking of which, how is Cyborg and…oh what was the little alien's name...? Starfire, correct? I haven't seen the pair in an age, and I'm dying to find out."

Roaring like a lioness, she thrashed at such a disrespectful insult.

"They're about to be avenged!" she managed to utter in her frenzy.

One of the few lights exploded in an explosion of black, her powers were becoming more unstable by the second.

Observing the cascading shards of glass, he simply raised an unimpressed brow underneath, and decided it was the correct time. Standing regally, he stepped down the lonely edge and paced forward, hands strictly behind his back.

"I think you're over exaggerating," he determined as he strode. "You see, dear child, I have brought down one of your precious friends. He's on my level now, just like Terra was." He was in front of her now and she whisked her head away, hating the man who caused so much pain and stole every shred of happiness.

Smirking, he snagged her chin, and raised it up forcefully, the butterflies of sadistic ecstasy escalating through his bones, soaring in his core. Her glare burned into him, and he rivaled it with an icy one.

"Today, girl, I offer the same choice," he explained, not even a weary breath exited the manmade slits. "You deeply impressed me when you destroyed the world, I wasn't lying about that. Join me, and I can take away those pesky emotions of yours." His eye briefly flicked to where the bulb used to swing and back to her. "I can unlock the hiding power within you, teach you some control, just like my pet."

Releasing her wide face, he stepped behind Beast Boy, who still held Raven in a stranglehold listlessly; he placed his gloved hands on the boy's narrow shoulders.

"I believe you have noticed his great potential, it wasn't hard," he said, the arrogance clear within the stable currents of his voice. "Only a few weeks, days, and he became the ultimate apprentice."

"If you think I'd ever-"

"I do think you will, Raven," he prophesized, striding in front of her again. "I know that you care deeply for the dog, petty as it may be, are you going to abandon him to me? Look at what I have done, girl. The pain and terror I have caused him is legendary, do you dare play the cards again? Perhaps it might end, I have developed a fondness for the destruction he causes, but no one protects him. If you have a shred of insignificant feeling, dare I say love, for him, will you subject him to the endless horror I have planned for the rest of his pathetic life? It wouldn't be a surprise, you've failed him before; however, I am granting you a second chance to redeem yourself."

Temptation, love, care, and worry all melded into one, and she couldn't fight the ambiguity presented to her. Caught between her civic duties to stop evil and, especially, never fall to it, she couldn't deny the fact she still hoped to save him. Would joining Slade be the easiest way to do such a thing?

The seed had planted, the damnation within her yearned to spread its black wings, yet the white cloak simply wished to have a happy ending to all the madness. Was it still possible? With all the death and destruction, with everything that had happened in the past month, could her friend, could the world, could she, still be saved? Was the sin too much for purity? Was she already tainted?

He saw her mind churning through the uncertainty in her eyes, but he had other plans for the day, and he couldn't wait hand and foot for the grace of her answer.

"Think about it," he said after moments of tense silence. "You have an hour to decide. Say yes, and you will live, say no, and I will destroy your body, mind, and soul until you beg for the end."

She gulped, no one could dish out a threat like Slade, and Beast Boy began to drag her up the familiar stairs.

Why hadn't she fought? Why hadn't she? He was right there, just for the taking. She could have formed a spike and impaled him right through the eye or…something! Why didn't she? Was it because, secretly, she was fascinated by the puzzle of it all? Or was it she simply wished to protect Beast Boy by not consequently hurting him?

Another thought occurred.

_I might have lost._

Never had she admitted her fear of defeat, especially at the hands of the immature green, gray now, but if their last two fights had proven anything, he was strong. Slade may have been a psychopath, a crazy, about as evil as the demon that sired her, even, but his tactics were flawless, his methods for achieving what he wanted, unparalleled.

Robin may have never admitted it, but the days he spent with the mask made him a better fighter. When he got back from the hellish thing, it was easy to see that his style, strength, and speed had escalated.

Simply, it was now Beast Boy who was the master of his trade, and she wondered how much better Robin would have gotten had he stayed with Slade for another week.

So immersed in her thoughts, she hadn't noticed their arrival back into the room of mirrors. She snapped her eyes shut again, not wanting a migraine on top of everything.

Before he shut her away, he found the courage to speak, even if her eyes were closed.

"I-it would be great…" he whispered in her ear. "Master knows all, and we could…" his throat closed shyly. "…be…companions? I c-could…I-I-I…take care of you…"

A wave of desire flushed through her as she heard the familiar cracks of his voice, and it was hard not turning around and flinging her arms around him in a tight hug, but she remained silent.

Opening a trap, he gently pushed her into it, and she was locked underneath the smoke and mirrors with a cloud of dust and a thud.

Peering at where she disappeared, he cracked a ghost of a smile.

_Maybe she'll say yes…!_

Coughing from the sharp inhalation of dust, she peered around, the wood creaking beneath her.

_I should go...escape..._she thought. _I could, but..._

Slade's words rang through her mind:_  
_

_"Are you going to abandon him to me?"_

She shook her head.

_I won't abandon him or Robin. Not this time._

Footsteps whisked away and came back, now with another pair, and she reckoned it was Robin's turn. Guessing the dragging and mismatched rhythm was the wounded bird, she prayed that Slade would offer him the same, and she would have another soul to talk to about the predicament. Robin would certainly snap her out of it.

But deep down, she knew it may be the last she would see or hear of the boy. Robin's thirst for vengeance was unquenchable.

So was Slade's.

"Let go," Robin grumbled after his painful awakening, and now he was more dazed than ever, the mirrors blinded him, but out of sheer pride he kept his eyes open to everything, he wasn't one to be taken off guard, ever again.

The shadow heaving him did not respond, but he had a good idea of who the shady figure was: Beast Boy.

They all thought he hated the poor kid. But, he didn't, it wasn't him, it wasn't. It was Slade.

God, he hated that man, more than anything in the world. Just thinking of his superiority, their face-offs, their aggravating fights, too few he had won.

He didn't need a father.

The thought surprised him, why would something like that pop up?

He didn't want a father.

_Of course I don't…I have one: Bruce. _

One that hated him.

_He didn't…_

One that never let him in on anything, pressed him to the edge, always kept him outside the loop, and assumed the worst of him at all times.

_He was overbearing, but better than having no one._

Was it?

_Of course!_

Then why was he doing just the same?

_What?_

It clicked as soon as he saw the young boy's face.

His anger and resentment toward Beast Boy reflected more than one relationship. He had tried before, he tried to console Terra, bring her back, but she didn't listen. But was he close with her like he was with Beast Boy?

It pained him, in more ways than one, but could he redeem his brother? The month without him was one masked in confusion, and he had tried not to face the fact that Beast Boy was in a serious predicament. He never was.

But when he saw him, when he saw his broken down state for the first time…the issue became as grave as only a few other things he had witnessed in his lifetime. The exoskeleton gleamed evilly in testament to it, even in the dark, and he was thankful Slade hadn't put him into one of those.

He just took his dignity, his morality, and stole precious seconds, matured him yet ultimately doomed him.

He thought he was the only one to understand such things. Terra had paid the price; she had done something to counter the influence of wickedness. Robin, he had just picked up where he left off. He led the Titans, cleaned up the streets, but did he really have any moment where he got over it?

It wasn't anger, hatred, or even envy that made him despise Beast Boy in the past days, but fear. Fear that the youngster would go through the same fate, that he would be carved in rock as well, and Robin did not want to get anywhere near the catastrophe that the boy brought with him.

If Bruce taught him anything it was that getting close to anyone meant a weakness, it meant that when they met their maker it would be the sole fault of him and it would make the pain so crippling that the soul was in jeopardy.

Bruce's was gone the minute he took up the cowl.

Realizing this late epiphany that was simply hidden from his sight, he coughed.

"Beast Boy…" he muttered, doubt rising into his throat. "You need to snap out of this."

Stopping, turning, thinking he had enough to time to deliver the strangely dressed boy to master, he awaited any more comments that he could not process well.

"Don't you see this is Slade?" he continued, the passion in his voice rising. "He's the bad guy, not us. He's the one that's caused all your pain. He killed Terra."

He didn't like this boy, that was apparent. He was trying to rival for the hand of friendship the pale girl extended, his basic testosterone levels rose inch by inch, as well as his defense for Slade's canon.

"Y-y-you're just…just trying to t-trick me," he stuttered quietly, his black eyes furrowing as he stumbled through syllables. "M-master said this would happen."

Robin raised a brow at how deformed the boy had become, his eyes strayed downward and he noticed the dried blood upon himself, awakening another memory.

The test to retrieve Beast Boy from the dark became harder.

"Look," he seethed, every shallow breath of Starfire surging in his memory. "I know what it's like to hurt your friends, and I know what it's like to want to hide away and give in when the pain is just too much. But, Beast Boy, don't give in. It's what he wants."

"Stop trying to trick me!" he hissed, his mind reaching its limit of understanding.

"I'm not trying to do anything, I just want to help," Robin countered bitterly, his anger strangling his intellect and compassion. "If anyone's fooling anyone, it's you!" The sparkle of hope and redemption faded. "I can't believe I'm trying to get you out of this. I didn't need anyone, Terra didn't need anyone, but you need constant help…You're acting like a child!"

Without another thought, a tiger paw emerged and he swiped at the boy, scratching his face deeply.

"Stop. It."

Turned away, Robin lifted his free hand to his cheek and studied the blood oozing upon his already tarnished glove. Hand morphing back into a human one, Beast Boy began to lead again, hoping that master would do something to the outspoken teen.

Gritting his teeth, trying not to break his skull open with a fist, he tried his luck again, was it too late?

"Beast Boy, look, I'm sorry," he started again, even though the gray one paid him no heed. "It's just that…" he sighed. "I'm worried about a lot of things, and I don't know how to handle it right now. Starfire could be dead, Cyborg is dead, Raven's God knows where, you're facing destruction, and I'm…"

The boy stopped, intrigued by his words yet again, he did mention the pale one.

They peered at one another, Robin trying to get to the boy emotionally, and the other trying to understand anything coming out of his mouth.

"…I'm…I'm…just confused and pissed off," he relayed, finding it hard to express his emotions, even to the unaware creature before him. "I didn't think it was a problem, I just thought you were trying to grow up again, but then when Slade came into the picture…I just wanted to find you and relieve my own fears. But, I just made things worse, and maybe if we found you earlier, if I had just listened…none of this would have happened."

The speech was heart filled, even to the numb Beast Boy, but he wasn't sure who this boy kept referring to, why did he need to be found? Wasn't he always here? Was he…? He couldn't remember anymore, he couldn't know for sure, but what he did know was that master, or Slade, was just around the corner and he was expecting him.

He nodded emptily, and began to walk yet again.

"Look, I'm sorry," Robin repeated, his voice cracking. "I just hope you know that. I'm so sorry, for everything."

This was unusual, this was weird, strange, bizarre, how could he respond to such empathy when he hadn't been shown anything of the sort for a month? A month filled to the brim with insults, pain, hatred, schemes, lies, and confusion. Who was strong enough to resist? No one.

The doors came, they went, they swung, and Robin faced the same judge and jury as Raven.

Instead of seated, he was fully prepared, he had awaited this day for so long.

"Robin," he remarked, his eye flicking to the blood on his cheek, he moved the soulless pupil to the pet.

"Beast, heel."

Immediately, he left Robin, who was eyeing the doors behind, and went to his master's side morphing into a crow to help his weakening limbs, he landed on the outstretched arm of Slade timidly.

The mask twisted to him.

"Why is our guest already bleeding?" he asked lightly, the higher his vocal strings got, the worse his tempter was, something the child had figured out during week two. "I wanted him perfect."

Skipping off the metal forearm, he landed solidly on the ground as a boy, prepared to answer.

"He...he tried t-to…" he gulped as Slade's eye narrowed. "T-t-trick me…"

"Really?" he wondered, the iris gazing upward ironically, the hand coming below the makeshift chin. "Or were you so idiotic that you actually listened to him?"

"N-no…I-I j-just…"

"Silence," he snapped. "I told you before: Not a word to the enemy. Pathetic dog."

Watching the horror in Beast Boy's eyes, obsidian as they might be, was enough to send a multitude of shivers down Robin's spine. Never had Slade acted in such an awful way, even to him, even to Terra. It seemed with each passing year his insanity grew directly. All thought lost to running, he was rooted in his place as Slade lifted his left arm, opened the metal guard and snagged his thumb upon a button behind.

Beast Boy's eyes watched as his master did so, each second making him sweat, he almost had the courage to beg.

Robin watched in amazement as his friend's body was flung backward awfully, his spine spiking upward, trying to mend the pain as he convulsed soon after. Foam escaped his fanged mouth, the black eyes became white as they rolled to the back, his feet curling distortedly, fingernails dug into the ground and actually tore through the cement, yet with the cost of his thumbnail.

Five seconds, ten, twenty, thirty, time kept passing and with each moment Beast Boy's body began to flicker with blistering burns.

"Stop!" Robin finally yelled, charging Slade. "Don't you see you're killing him?!"

His body went limp, finally an end to such pain, and through it all he had to morph and block Robin's path to master. Snapping his jaws, the enormous wolf growled and Robin stopped and backed away, amazed after all that Beast Boy still stood.

"There's a good boy," Slade said, patting the gnarly, crisping thing on the head quickly, and turned his attention to Robin.

"Christ…" Robin whispered, Slade had demented the once thinking, feeling friend into nothing more than a loyal dog, something Robin thought Beast Boy would never be.

"Ah, yes, I almost forgot you were there," Slade mused.

"You're a damned monster," Robin spat back, disgusted by everything he witnessed, but overall guilty he hadn't seen it sooner. "What you're doing is…is…"

"Brilliant?" he finished for him sarcastically. "Yes, I know. But stop the flattery Robin, it doesn't suit you."

Furrowing his brow, Robin snarled, his upper lip picking up as he exposed his grinding teeth.

"Please, I already have one animal, I do not need another," Slade hooted, and stepped forward. "But it seems you are jealous. Now that does suit you."

"Cut the crap, Slade," Robin demanded. "You're not leaving here or getting away with what you've done without a fight."

In response, Slade did a cruel second of chuckling.

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you," he observed. "Although, instead of simply embarrassing you and allowing my dog to tear you apart, I have an offer you're not in a position to refuse."

"What are you talking about?"


	21. Chapter 21

Thumps of aggravation, she pounded against the floor-ceiling. It was an idiotic move, she could have simply phased through and been more civil about it, but she also wanted to release the building frustration that was burning in her stomach.

She hadn't felt so confused about something so horrible since her father's return.

"_Do you really want to make their last day full of pain?"_

The side of her clenched fist throbbed.

"_I'm not the one hurting them, you are."_

A splinter plagued her finger.

"_Are you going to abandon him to me?"_

On the pull back, blood was dripping.

"_It wouldn't be a surprise, you've failed him before." _

Her hand was splitting open.

"_Will you subject him to the endless horror I have planned for the rest of his pathetic life?"_

"Dammit!" she screamed into the void and then collapsed, her cloak wrapped protectively around her.

Tears flowed freely; she tried to stifle the demon within from exposing, for it always loved to strike when she was at her weakest.

"_You'll always be Daddy's little girl…"_

"_I am granting you a second chance to redeem yourself."_

She placed her head in between her knees, ignoring the pulsating pain radiating from her hand.

"Oh, Beast Boy…" she whispered. "It's all my fault…"

"What are you talking about?" Robin snapped to Slade.

His eye sized up the masked crusader for a moment, letting his easy anger explode for an answer.

"Well?!"

Just on time, he clasped his hands behind his back and stood as straight as possible.

"Tell me Robin, how alone are you?"

"What?!"

"It's a simple question."

"I'm not alone."

"Really? Come now, Robin, we both now that's a lie."

"I don't understand…"

Coming closer, although the boy wonder was not acute to it, for he was still puzzled by the question.

"I know you better than your friends ever will hope to understand."

Now it was his turn to scoff.

"It doesn't sound like I'm the jealous one, Slade."

Smiling beneath the mask, he enjoyed a good chess game, Robin was the ultimate opponent.

"How right you are, child," he countered surprisingly. "I have been burned by you before, more than once."

He raised an eyebrow, and smirked at the vulnerability Slade gave him.

"I can give you a good break-up hotline."

A bark of laughter rippled through the metal man.

"I'm afraid you misunderstand me, boy," he continued, striding right up to the masked bird. "I am simply giving you a history lesson, one that has never left my mind…or yours."

"Stop being cryptic and just get on with it, Slade."

"Force of habit," he flicked away, holding his hand up lightly and twirling his fingers to physically remove the insult. "What I'm trying to get through your thick skull is that I am still interested in you. You may have gotten away before, but I remember telling you I would come again."

"_Another day, Robin. Another day."_

"The day has come once more, child. I offer you the same job, nay, the privilege of serving me."

"Running out of ideas, Slade?" Robin snarled. "I think I also told you I would never dream of being your apprentice again. Not then, not now, not ever."

Leaning forward to look the boy straight in the eye, Slade narrowed his in a brief flash of anger.

"Your meaningless sense of duty is touching," he analyzed. "But I'm afraid, once again Robin, I'm holding all the cards. You may want to pick your battles, and your words, more wisely."

Robin glared back, testing his arch rival.

"I could easily end your life right now."

Slade snapped his fingers, Robin was tackled by the beast, whose heavy limbs and drooling muzzle kept the boy from moving, and he looked hungry.

Slade crouched next to them both.

"I wouldn't blink an eye, Robin, I wouldn't even give it another thought," he continued. "This pet of mine would tear you apart as leisurely as I would want him to, and I assure you, it would be slow. But what keeps your heart beating is my mercy."

"Yeah right!" Robin struggled to say against the heavy wad of fur pressed into his stomach. "The only reason I'm still here is because you're a crazy son of a-"

Howling quickly, the boy got the chance to snap his jaws, whisking a puddle of spit upon the mask of Robin below him. No one speaks to master that way…

"Heel."

Jumping away, he sat next to Slade, a deep, low growl still resounding from his stomach as the teen stood back up, wiping the slobber away.

"This brings me to my next point," the masked man explained, his hand firmly upon his pet's head. "Isn't this waste of life your friend?"

Robin took a second, peering at the boy who used to be characterized by a warm smile and the smell of tofu.

He nodded slowly.

"I'm going to tell you what I told Raven," he said shadily, and smirked. "Serve me, and I will allow him to live. He's the only one left, Robin, the last of your team that can be spared a cruel fate." His hand dug deeper into the fur as he pat.

He was about to counter…

"I saw her die, Robin."

He dropped to his knees.

_Impossible…we saved her…no._

"She held on, but did not get help quickly enough," he recounted, his voice not dropping with a sliver of sympathy or regret. "I think her last word was your name." He wheezed out a laugh. "Isn't it always?"

"No..." he whispered out, moving his head closer into his arms to cradle it softly.

He whisked his gloved hand away from the wolf, and came to stand next to Robin.

"Look at him, child," he instructed, to which Robin responded by staring emptily at Beast Boy. "He's withering away. Soon, his body will erode into nothing, another one of your precious teammates to die on your behalf. Join me, and I will give him the treatment he needs to live. Disobey me, refuse me, and I will kill him, easily, simply, for he has served me well. The same cannot be said for Raven."

"If you lay a hand…"

"I already have, dear child."

"No…you wouldn't…"

"She still lives Robin, but her time, his time, and yours are running out. The offer won't stand forever, and believe me when I say it will be no trouble destroying you and Raven. In fact, I will enjoy it."

The boy still sat limply on his knees; he had been through too much in too short amount of time. He could only imagine how Beast Boy felt only a few weeks ago…

How did Slade know so much about them? How could he know every button, every card to push and hold? It wasn't fair. They had beaten him, he had left, and he had been out of their lives for a long time. Robin thought the nightmare was over, his certainly ended after year one, he thought…maybe…the masked villain had reformed.

It was obvious he hadn't. He had gotten worse, much worse.

They had fought together, stopped the ending of the world together, and it seemed to have affected Slade. No longer was he simply dishing out punches and giving breathers, no more compassion or hesitating, which he had little of in the first place.

Robin was faced with the difficult truth that the person he had feared for so long, was more of a monster than before.

"_It's what I do best."_


	22. Chapter 22

She still sat in the corner, weeping softly for the destroyed fates of the day. Even though her mind tried desperately to increase the security in herself, it also hissed her weaknesses, and the guilt already unhinged and released was not to be painted over easily.

"My fault…my fault…" she rocked back and forth heavily, sadly.

The opening creaked, her head snapped up and she didn't bother wiping her tears away.

_I don't have an answer yet…_

She hadn't mulled it over in the slightest, her pained chest and warring psyche restricting her to do nothing more than sob. What would she do? What could she do? Leave now and look like a coward as well as delay the inevitable of him finding her once again, stay and live or stay and die…horribly.

The options were not pleasant.

What if it was all just a joke? A scheme? What if he was simply testing her, and even if she said yes, he would kill her and all of it would have been for naught.

Luckily, for it had only been forty five minutes exactly, another form was thrown into her, the door shut again.

"Ow…" it said, and she recognized the raspy voice.

"Robin?" she questioned.

"Raven?" he answered back, and shifted off of her awkwardly. "Sorry…"

"What happened to you?"

"Well, Beast Boy took me down somewhere…"

"Yes, I know!" she snapped. "The same happened to me, I mean, what did Slade say to you?"

"Oh…" he muttered, the eyes that were trying to find the girl gave up and he looked at his hands. "Well…"

"He offered you an apprenticeship, didn't he?"

A sigh came as well as a somber:

"Yeah."

The two sat in silence for a brief breath, the burden sinking in.

"Do you have any idea how to…?" he wondered.

"No."

"We can't leave…?"

"No."

"Are you going to say ye-?"

"No."

"Then, we're going to d—"

"No, we're not."

"Yes, we are, Raven. Slade's changed, he's different. Everything is…"

"I know," she cut off again. "I never thought he'd actually…"

"I know."

"What do we say?"

The boy lifted his less bloody hand to his chin, thinking it over.

"Ok…ok…" he began, the wheels in his head smoking. "... I have no idea…"

"I know the feeling."

"He's right."

"Yes."

"If we leave then he'll just come after us again, and we won't even get an opportunity to live."

"If we stay, it could be a trick."

"We may just die anyway."

"Probably."

"But…" he breathed out in a slight cough.

"Beast Boy," she finished, and she slumped against the wall.

Another hush fell between them, exits thoroughly blocked, hope dissolving by the second.

"Maybe we should just go," he hypothesized. "We may not be able to help Beast Boy immediately, but when we get to the tower, we could make a cure."

"Me and Cy already thought of that…"

"So? We try and try again until…"

"What? Slade kills us before we get five feet from this place. We could be miles away from the city for all we know. Plus, just because I can phase us through doesn't mean I have a great knowledge of the underground here. We could run right into him just trying to get out."

"But we can't just sit here and do nothing."

"Robin, maybe we should…"

"No."

"I don't like it anymore than you do, but…"

"I said no."

"Listen to me!" she barked back. "If we just say yes, then when his back is turned…"

"Rae, it won't work like that."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know him," he explained soberly. "I know him better than I know myself, my parents, you. If we give in, he won't just pat us on the head and let us run wild. I mean, look at Beast Boy, I bet even when he gave in, Slade still nailed that thing into his back. He's gone, there's nothing left of him, yet Slade still treats him like crap."

"I understand."

"Do you?" Robin said, standing as tall as he could within the confines of the space. "I worked for him for two days, Rae…two days, and look what happened! He took everything from me, threatened to destroy everything I loved, and even when I got away…Slade won't turn his back. He'll never give us a chance or a hope to betray him."

"You sound like me."

"What?"

"Robin, two years ago I said exactly the same thing. I thought it was all over. But you still hoped, don't tell me that you've given up on that just because it's Slade."

"This is different…"

"You keep saying that, but it isn't! There's still a bad guy to defeat, there's still a lot on the line, and there's still hope to save Beast Boy and end this whole thing. We have to think of something."

"Starfire's dead, Raven."

Thunderstruck, her jaw lowered an inch.

"That's…that's not possible…I healed her."

"He told me…he saw her die."

"And you believed him?"

"He's the only source to tell me anything about her…for now it has to be true."

"Slade always lies."

"Not this time…"

"Always."

"He killed Cyborg…"

She shook her head.

"We can grieve later," she said gently. "For now we have to do what we can with the time we have. He'll come for us."

"So really there's only one question to answer right now."

"Yes or no?"

Footsteps approached, they only had seconds to decide. Yet, their eyes connected in the dark, somehow, and a plan hatched in between.

"What if…?"

Beast Boy heaved the heavy trapdoor open, and poked his head in, confirming that the two still sat there. He smirked slightly at Raven and then glared at Robin, he motioned with his head for them to follow.

The two shared one last glance and crouched out of the dusty room.


	23. Chapter 23

Motioning them along, yet turning back every second to check behind him, Beast led the wary two down through the now familiar path to where Slade lazily resided.

"Why can't the coward just get up and come over?" Robin whispered fiercely under his breath, even with his life on the line, he still had the energy to criticize.

Even though Raven both rolled her eyes and gave him a disbelieving look, it lightened the serious mood. A bizarre distraction, but one nonetheless, eased the grief that she saw flowing through his eyes.

She prayed Starfire still lived, but who really knew? As strong as her senses and empathy were, it was no use to her here, when she was so far away from their bodies, their spirits.

Although her mind strayed as she tried to appease two very different hosts who were on the edge of destroying one another, she kept focused. They hadn't had enough words to formulate their sketchy plan, but maybe the bond they shared communicated enough.

It would be difficult, one or both may not survive.

"W-why d-d-do you stay loyal to…him?" a squeak spat in her ear. "H-he d-doesn't take c-care of you…like I would…l-like master would…"

Surprised by his proximity she gave a slight cringe.

When she peered across and saw Beast Boy walking, as best he could, beside her, she wondered how centered she really was.

_Focus…focus! _

Even though silence still existed between them, he expected an answer sooner or later.

"I don't stay _loyal_ to anyone," she retorted shortly.

Confused, he furrowed his eyebrows.

"I-I…don't under…-stand…" he relayed, his black eyes shimmering with a host of demons.

The stairs approached, and their feet clanked as they descended down the rough stone cliffs.

"I am not anyone's servant or crony," she explained, her head straight and proud, her eyes facing ahead. "I am my own person. I have no master… not anymore, at least."

Even in all his numbness and dumb infatuation, he gasped at her strange words.

_Everyone has a master. _He thought, his brain pumping with fear._ Master will not like her._

"Y-you mustn't-t s-say that…" he scolded her gently, weakly.

They still stomped down and down and down the spiraling stairway, but she wanted to stop and smack this child who used to be her friend upside the head.

"Why. Not?" she hissed through gritted teeth, thoroughly done with her mildness toward him.

Not taken aback in the least by her venom tongue, for such a tone was good day when entertaining Slade, he was perfectly fine with clarifying the mishap.

"M-master will n-n-not like it."

She gave a monotone chuckle overflowing with sarcasm.

"Believe me, I know."

Before he could question her strange ways of speaking, the door was right in front of his face.

Twisting the knob he yanked it open, allowing the pair to go in first, and following close behind.

His arms and legs became nothing and everything as he slithered below, his fangs prepared to thoroughly dose any trouble with toxin injected straight into the bloodstream.

"The prodigal son," Slade remarked coldly as they reentered, his eye tracing Robin and then flicking starkly to Raven. "…and daughter."

Not speaking a word, Robin simply grunted while Raven glared.

Taking no heed to their hot temperaments, Slade stood in the ring of light, beckoning them over with a crook of his finger. Hissing loudly, Beast Boy guided them, full of excitement for the new friend he would make that day, and the new enemy he would gladly kill.

"Did you make your decision?" Slade questioned calmly, his one pupil swinging back and forth from Titan to Titan. "I remind you that your very lives depend on it, as well as the pain you will endure should you refuse."

His wandering eye landed on the escaped boy wonder first and, as they both entered the glaring circle, Robin stood a few feet ahead of Raven, who observed darkly from the edge.

"Here we are again, Robin," Slade alleged. "Brings back memories doesn't it?"

"_All I remember is how much I hated you."_

Swallowing down the answer he snapped out when last they met face to face, he gave a shallow nod.

"Yes."

Impressed, Slade encircled him like a wolf intimidating an infant deer.

"Will you swear to serve me?"

Clenching his fist and then opening it again, he grimaced noticeably, and kept his head low. His teeth firmly planted in his lip, blood began to lightly weep.

"I…" he began hesitantly, the tethers holding his proud head snapping by the second, until his neck could no longer buttress. "Will."

Pleasantly surprised, Slade placed his massive, black hand upon the teen's shoulder.

"That's my boy."

Seething with hatred, Raven's eye twitched and the bulb cracked above them. Ears pricking up at the sound, Slade turned to the self righteous girl and smirked beneath his mask.

She remained at the very corner of the light, only held there by an intimidating snake flicking his tongue at her heels.

"Traitor," she barked behind Robin.

The boy wonder, the boy succumbed, the lost boy, did not turn around and face her, but kept his head dejectedly low, shame plugging up his veins.

"Now Raven, I'm astonished," the metal man reported, his vocal strings heavenly high. "Here I thought you would be practical and readily accept my offer. You are more evil than I, remember?"

Snorting obscenely, she gave a cocky smirk and tightly folded her arms, leaning on a strong leg.

"_Come to think of it, Slade, you're already insignificant, even your own army won't listen to you."_

"I think you're confused, Slade," she said, lifting a posh finger to her chin and thrusting her eyes upward, while his was gleaming with flame. "I'm not practical."

"I think you'll regret that choice, dear girl."

"Go to Hell, say hi to my father."

"I won't tolerate that foul mouth, Raven," he reprimanded, coming closer to where she stood. "This is your last chance."

"Oh, in that case…" she spat sarcastically, trying to keep her wobbling legs from buckling beneath her as he now was just an inch away. "No."

"I suggest you reconsider before I lose my patience, girl."

Their eyes fought for dominance, even though he was a good foot taller.

"How many times do I have to-?"

"Master!"

This interjection from the green child was most unwarranted, and Slade was in no mood to appease the boy, not now.

"What is it?" he snapped, not breaking eye contact.

"C-can I t-talk to her…?"

A glimmer of shock flashed in his eye, yet Raven still saw the wheels churning beneath. She could say no to Slade, but what about Beast Boy?

A foot back, a hesitation in her strong, massive blues was the only answer he needed.

"No, you can't," he said softly, gently, his voice velvety smooth. "But I know what you can do, dear boy."

Now he stood behind the masked man, his body language begging to know what he could do to help.

"You can die."

Lifting the control panel up, out of its hiding place in his forearm, he smashed the lethal trigger. With a cry of agony, Beast Boy fell to his knees, his hands tearing at his head. The shrill scream coming from her friend pushed her too far.

As she winced openly at his peril, the sight of him withered away at her anger.

"This is your doing, Raven," Slade recounted, hammering the spike into her heart. "This is the price of your defiance."

"No!" she yelled, beginning to run to help the poor, shrieking, writhing boy upon the floor, but was stopped by Slade who merely snatched onto her cloak.

"Let…me…go!" she growled, and threw her leg up in a kick.

Catching her small heel, he twisted it painfully, grinding the bones out of place.

Satisfied with her aggrieved yelp, he let her fall.

"R-raven…"

The gray boy was crawling toward her, pleading for mercy only after forty five seconds, yet in his pursuit he convulsed again and laid back, his limbs grotesquely bubbling and rippling.

"Stop it!" she demanded, twisting to see Slade snobbishly crossing his arms.

"I'm not the one hurting him," he replied easily, and before the memories of her skin glowing with red symbols could flood, she threw a punch, the obsidian fist sprouting from nothing. He dodged, barely, and managed to pound the chunks of stone flying toward him into rubble as well.

While he was fighting against her magic, she managed to get closer to the howling teen.

If she could just...

Aggravatingly close to his vibrating body, she was pulled back by her calf, Slade's frigid fingers reacted with her skin and a flourish of goose bumps sprouted.

Within seconds, she was thrown back, her twisted, broken foot aching against the air, yet somehow she landed softly on her own bed of black energy.

"Ah…" she breathed out, sucking in harshly.

Covered by shadow, she put up a massive shield about her, taking a timeout from the battle.

"My, my ,what a coward you are, Raven."

His voice penetrated through the bubble, clouded and distorted, but she heard his disgusting chords nonetheless. Along with his soft tones, she could easily make out Beast Boy's unending screams.

Two minutes.

A ripple banged through her shelter, Slade was breaking in. In no position to run or defend, there wasn't a lot she could do to stave him off. A crack of white against the orb of black, he was digging closer to the prize he sought.

_Ok ok ok… God what do I do?! _

A chunk of dark glass broke off and shattered into nothing as his superhuman fist crashed through.

"You can't hide forever, dear girl."

Building the energy in her stomach, she crossed her throbbing leg over the other, and lifted.

"Azeroth, Metrion, Zinthos," she chanted, her usually monotone voice wavering.

_Come on…come on…calm, tranquility…_

"Not this time, Raven."

When the worlds and cosmos of empty space began to shine in her mind's eye, a gnarled hand grabbed her by the throat and brought her down to Earth. Seeing the real world, she had failed, Slade's skeletal hand was tightening around her neck, her feet dangling in the air.

"Nice try, but you can't escape me."

Heaving his arm forward, she slid with a devastating skid, landing right beside Beast Boy, whose body had gone perfectly still. Seeing double of shadows and swinging bulbs, she managed to close her eyes and feel her way around pathetically.

"Beast Boy…" she breathed out weakly, her fingers finding his frame, a jolt of shock bit back at her.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Y-you've killed him…" she realized, and she could not even peer upon his peaceful body in a last goodbye.

She supposed she might as well get used to eternal black.

Yet, as a gesture of grief, she bowed her head, her bruised body shaking with depression.

"I did nothing."

"What?"

"I said," the fiend repeated arrogantly as she felt his presence beside her, basking in the murky emotions that soaked her to the core. "I did nothing to the boy. He would still be alive if it wasn't for you."

Her shut eyes glaring madly, she pushed up off the ground and tried her luck giving him a punch. Without a hesitation, he caught her fist in his palm as she thrashed impressively. Her veins undulating with hate, she made another attempt with her right hand, to which he snagged her wrist.

"Ah, yes. Back again," he reminisced. "'What you have concealed, you shall become'." He let a dry chuckle escape his petrified mask as he repeated the saying. "Still relatable, don't you think?"

"No, it's not!" she barked back.

"Now, now, just because you're going to die doesn't mean you have to be juvenile about it," he scolded cruelly, still easily keeping her in place as she struggled. "Unruly behavior, Raven. I expected a little more, especially from you."

"Are you always such a prick?" she snapped back rhetorically.

"Sticks and stones, girl, none of which will save you."

"Right back at you," she gloated, throwing a dirty knee into a worse place.

Groaning, the man fell to his knees, cusses streaming freely from his mask.

She would have savored the moment if Beast Boy had not been limp. Whisking as fast as she could to him, she sat down upon her legs and held her hands over his chest, feeling for life without shocking herself into a coma.

A faint beat still resided.

"He's alive…" she whispered in giddy happiness. "Robin!"

The boy who had been watching from the shadows strode over.

"Your turn," she said lightly, switching their shifts. "Find anything out?"

"Beast Boy is fully under Slade's control, if we're gonna defeat him or ever get BB back, we'll need to destroy the triggers in his forearm somehow," he reported, kneeling across from her.

"Any clu-?"

"Oh Raven, I'll have quite the time dissecting you."

"Keep him busy," she ordered, paying no heed to the disgusting threat. "I need time."

Turning his head to where the masked villain still grunted, he nodded sharply.

"How much?" he asked hollowly.

"As much as you can give me, I need to find out where the shocks are coming from."

"Ungrateful wretches…" Slade was coming back to life, and quickly making his way over.

"Check the collars," he advised before sprinting off, if Slade came back to full strength, they'd both be in for it.

"What? The collars…?" she asked dumbly before setting her sight on the black things wrapped tightly around his ankles, wrist, and neck. "Oh, duh."

His battle cry resonated through the chamber, and the fight between the two old adversaries began once more.

"Come now, Robin," she heard Slade taunt. "Don't do something you're going to regret."

"The only thing I regret is ever listening to a word you said!"

"So be it."

Absorbing the bloody, pus-leaking straps in a conch of black energy, she tore them away. They were entrenched deeply and it took a bit of mind pulling and sweat to yank them out.

"You seem to be rusty, Robin. I'm afraid my time away has made you soft."

Apparently he was losing…

_Hang in there Robin. Just a few more minutes._

One ankle strip lay on the floor, and she pulled out another, the released blood splattered on her face grossly, but she paid no attention to it.

The monstrous things had contorted spikes on the inside, which now had pieces of bone and muscle on them, it took all her willpower not to retch.

Tearing the left wrist apart was the only way to release him, and after unplugging it she noticed how distorted his skin, muscles, and bones were.

"Who could do something like this…?" she breathed to herself softly.

A blood curling scream rung behind her, along with sharp cracking.

_Robin!_

She turned to help, but there were only two collars left, only two away from ending the nightmare.

Amassing the wicked thing in her watery energy, she tugged one final time, and it flew behind her, landing with a thud satisfyingly.

One remained, around his neck, and she prayed it wouldn't kill him. Yet, much to her surprise it was a simple dog collar, only there to embarrass and demoralize him more than anything else. Placing her nimble, pale fingers on his person and, to her relief, receiving no shock, she lifted his head.

The enslaved boy felt a rush of pain as his first feeling back into reality, as well as throaty freedom. A click snapped, and he sensed rough leather rub gently across his skin. He wanted to sit up, master would expect him to, but much like before, a hand pressed him back down.

Was he on the table again? It had been increasingly long since he was in so much agony.

"Rest," came an angelic voice, and before he could release a pained breath or whimper, everything went numb.

The throbbing of his body was no more, but sweet, ignorant unfeeling. Raven encompassed him in a bulge of smooth, silky darkness and the shadow sunk into his gray flesh, seeped into his weary, broken bones.

It took a vast majority of her strength to revive and nurse him back to relative health, but she smiled contently as his own body began to stitch and repair, the skin tying up and the bones creaking like a boat at sea as they were placed back into normalcy.

His dyed skin still caused her to grimace, but the purple and yellow bruises were no more, and his somber face lit up into a smallest of grins as he faded into blissfulness.

"Finally," she sighed. "It's over."

"I couldn't have said it better myself."

It had been eerily silent since Robin's cry, and the reason became evident as Slade came into the light, dragging a bloody, bruised, torn bird along with him, his cloth mask hanging on by an inch.

Raven stared with complete hatred, even as the mysterious man threw the groaning, beaten boy directly in front of her.

Lifting him up into her lap like Mary, she cradled his head.

"I-I'm sorry Raven…" he gurgled out, a stream of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.

He went limp. It didn't change the fact she was virtually alone with the horrible demon again.

"My father should have killed you when he had the chance," she regretted heatedly, laying the ripped boy back on the ground and standing up on her own weak body.

"But he didn't," he reminded ruthlessly, his arms strictly at his sides, his hands clenching and unclenching as he peered on the girl who had gotten the better of him. "And now, I will complete my life's dream: Destroying the Teen Titans. There's only one left."

Her eyes glowed with a shimmering white, her fingers curled with hastening black.

"Well, what are we waiting for?"


	24. Chapter 24

"A good question, Raven."

His vile words sprung along with his body as he leapt into the air, roaring as he pounded his powerful fist into the ground. Jumping over the limp Robin and Beast Boy alike, she dodged such an attack and landed expertly on her feet a foot away from where he still crouched.

Giving her a glare, he started a dance of kicks, twirling uniformly in the air and swiping his foot. Putting up black shields, her forearms and hands sparkling with black, she blocked him at every attempt. They were getting nowhere, until he knocked her legs out from under her.

Falling with a defeated crash, she squirmed away before he could reach her, and as his hand attempted a grip, she cried and a massive black claw shattered him into the roof, a mess of little rocks marking the hit.

Pushing her hood up, she stood and brushed off, keeping her eyes peeled for any movement. It came from the right, and delivered a devastatingly hit to her side. Sliding far enough to hit a wall, she gasped with pain, the adrenaline proving to be far less effective.

She didn't have much time.

Within seconds he emerged from the shadows with a charge, and she narrowly avoided having her head cracked in two. She sent a punch, a light one, but strong enough to send him off balance. Quickly, she engulfed his chest in her unbreakable energy, and gave him a throw around.

Flinging him against the ground, the ceiling, anything cement-related, she used both her arms and finally let him go, chucking him back into the dark.

Thoroughly drained, she came down to all fours, breathing heavily. That had to be the last of him. She had spared nothing, hesitated minimally, and all signs pointed to his knockout or even his demise.

Slade was never so easy.

A sharp crack across his mask along with a multitude of splintering marked his vulnerability, along with rips in the uniform, but he sauntered back to her. He wasn't one to give up quite so easily.

"Dear child, you're going to be begging for the end when I'm done with you."

"Wanna bet?" she snapped, collecting any vigor she had left, and with a flicker her powers responded, but the tank was on low.

"Getting tired, are we?" he noticed wickedly. "That's funny, I'm just getting started."

He ran forward and knocked her down with a powerful fist, and she hit the cement hard. Still hanging onto consciousness, she saw his metal boot before her.

"Maybe healing the dog wasn't in your best interest after all."

"Don't call him that!" she defended, tossing a rope of obsidian at his head, she yanked his skull down to her level ruthlessly.

Shakily standing she placed her hands in position, holding onto him steadily.

His mask was withering away at her touch by the second, grinding away slowly. She would shed his flesh, rip his skin from his bones, and would enjoy every minute of it. Finally, she was going to get her revenge.

Her palm rose in the air, signaling a beginning to his pain, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

His eye remained fixed on hers, goading her to follow the same path he did, and she glared all the more, pressed her teeth together in a tearful snarl.

_He killed your friends. He hurt you, them, and everyone he ever came into contact with. He deserves the worst._ The red cloak whispered in her ear. _Kill him. _

_He's a sad man, doing so would only make things worse. _The white cloak countered. _Leave him to his own pain._

_We can't trust him to stop. It should end here._

_Let the justice system handle him, let him pay fairly for what he's done._

_He deserves death. That is his punishment, here, and in the courts._

_That's not for us to decide._

"What are you waiting for, Raven?" he weighed in, his voice faltering in the restriction of her power. "Kill me. It's what you want to do."

His tactics, his schemes, and her ultimate defiance against all of them seemed useless. Everything boiled down to this moment. It didn't take a thorough trick or well devised plan to make her his apprentice. Living or dead, he was going to corrupt her, somehow, someway.

"It should end here," she debated, her vicious glower enhancing as she looked upon this monstrous creature. "You killed Cyborg, Starfire…Terra. You are probably going to do away with Robin and Beast Boy, too... It's all your fault! Everything!"

His eye narrowed classically.

"Will killing me bring your precious friends back?"

Her palm curled, the prison around his head tightened.

"I. Didn't. Think. So," he struggled to say against the crushing of his cranium.

"It may not bring them back, but I don't think any of them would mind it!"

"Don't be so sure…" he growled.

"I should kill you," she cut in.

Not even acknowledging her, he simply rolled his one good eye, still able to act sarcastically evil even in his predicament.

"Really, Raven, we don't have all day. Decide."

"I can take as long as I damn well please!"

"No, you can't."

So caught up in her morality, she hadn't noticed that he had sneakily opened his forearm, and easily pressed a trigger before she could wrap him up in more magic.

In anguish, she snapped his legs behind his back and demented his figure.

"Not a bright idea, Slade."

Out of the corner of her eye, a bloodied, but in a healthy state, Beast Boy walked briskly forward upon the pair, awakened by his owner's call.

Caught in a quandary, she was using all her force to keep the struggling Slade occupied, the boy could easily take her out with a tackle or a well executed punch.

"Beast. Attack." Slade managed to spit out even as his head was bent back, his legs in two different directions, his arms crackling abnormally.

Instinctively he stepped forward to carry out his master's will.

"No, Beast Boy! Stop, you don't have to listen to him. It can all end, right now."

His foot came back into place.

"Didn't you hear me dog? Attack. Now!"

"Quiet." Raven hissed, focusing the squeeze of her power on his throat.

"Stop hurting master," the boy snarled, his body sprouting fur.

"He deserves it!" she retorted, not even looking at the boy, a tear falling down her face.

"Stop hurting master!" he repeated angrily, the fangs in his jaw growing, sharpening.

"No."

Growling ferociously, he charged as a lion and swiped her aside, breaking her connection to Slade. She flew against the wall with a crunch and dizzily fell to the ground.

Lifting her head, she saw Slade's freedom and his struggle to stand again.

"No…what have you done?" she breathed out. "It was all going to be over…"

"Impressive feat you did there, Raven, but you lack the guts," Slade critiqued, his chest barely heaving into life as Beast Boy helped him stand. "I, on the other hand, do not."

Limping to her, he grabbed onto her cloak easily, she was exhausted, no fight left and a gash marking her side. He lifted her against the wall, his hand holding up her wilted form as he prepared to snap her neck in half. Beast Boy approached timidly, taping Slade on the shoulder.

"Master…maybe she could still be—"

"Silence, pet. She defied me, and must pay the price."

Furrowing his brow, he poked the man again.

"What if…?"

"Quiet, dog, or you can be in her place."

Gulping, he remembered her idealistic words.

"Can't we just-"

Dropping her to the ground, he flipped around and struck out brutally, sending the gray teen flying.

"Where did you get such insolence?" Slade cried out, sauntering rigidly after the boy. "I gave you an order. Why do you disobey me?"

"I-I only wish to see…"

"You _wish_?" he interrupted yet again quickly coming up to where the boy now lay.

Pressing a foot into the boy's chest as he spat up blood, he continued his tirade:

"You have no say in anything. Your opinions are worthless. I am the master here. I am the one who controls your fate. I allow you to live only because I tolerate your presence. You live to serve me."

"You allow me to live because you're afraid!" the apprentice yelled back, new power rising.

"Afraid? Of what? You? Preposterous, child. I could have killed you before, and done it easily, too. Where are you getting these foolish ideas of free will?"

His black eyes flicked to the girl who remained still upon the rusty floor and back to the man threatening him, Slade followed his gaze and glared cruelly.

"I see."

He whisked away from Beast Boy, who was pleading with an outstretched hand as he left.

"No, wait, master! Wait! I didn't mean it!"

"After she dies, it will be all over," Slade spoke as he strode.

"No! No! Please, stop! I'll be good, I'll stop defying you, I swear!"

"The fact you ask for anything is a testament to your lack of respect. It ends here, don't worry, pet. Once she's dead, everything will return to what it was before."

Flicking a knife out, he would watch the blood drain and her eyes glaze over quickly. As much as he wanted to torture the girl, every second she spent near his slave was only corrupting him further.

"Please…no!" Beast Boy screamed as Slade lifted her against the wall, his arm swinging up as he intended to stab.

"Quoth the raven…"

"NO!"

Beast Boy ran up, in the form of desperate cheetah, and before the blade could come upon her throat he intercepted it, the knife running in between his shoulder blades. With a yelp he hobbled away, whimpering as he went.

"Idiot boy! Look what you did…" Slade snarled, clearly unhappy that all the hard work on breaking the child was now ruined.

Slade came next to the swaying cheetah and removed the knife from his back with a squeeze.

"I guess I'll just have to take the girl instead," he sighed out, flicking liquid off the blade. "Too bad, for I was really starting to enjoy myself."

Eyes wide, the cat roared and swiped behind him, knocking the man back. Not wasting time, for his master taught him well, he thrashed his grizzly bear claws into him over and over again. Slade threatened a pierce with his knife, but Beast Boy knocked it away and dug his overgrown nails into the man again.

Forcing him to the ground, he switched to a variety of animals, each one having their fill of destroying the demented owner. When he was done, his paws, talons, fingers were covered in blood and he stood, observing his kill.

The thick, scarlet liquid certainly seeped, but it didn't look as damaging as he thought, yet Slade's eye was firmly closed.

Giving one last glance, he turned to check on the girl…Raven.

Hearing the shuffle of his feet, Slade rose to a crouch, prepared to start the fighting again.

His ears pricked at the sound and he shed his skin and replaced it with intimidating stripes. He charged back and tore the mask off the surprised man and dug his massive, sharpened, crazed teeth in, tearing his façade apart.

The eye never left though, Slade's dead pupil still observed him even as he left the corpse in bloody tethers, the brain oozing blood out through the left side of his face.


End file.
